Friends, what we have here is a collection of photos & words from the last week(s) that have been accumulating on my phone and in my head. Let’s address them, shall we?

•  Stella & Dot Thing

I had a super spur of the moment Stella and Dot party for Wendy. My house isn’t air-conditioned and it’s practically summer, so I kept the guest list to a minimum and all snacks provided were store bought. TOTALLY UNLIKE ME. But Henry was like, “I am not slaving away in the hot kitchen, also you spent all of our money last night on your tattoo.” So we had birthday cake frosting Chips Ahoy, cherries, some type of Target scones that were better than the Chips Ahoys, chips, and Bagel Bites which JANNA kept calling PIZZA ROLLS even though there is a HUGE DIFFERENCE, so then Barb was calling them pizza rolls too because she is easily influenced and I was getting so mad, which made MONICA purposely call them pizza rolls because she loves to antagonize me! And Barb spilled her drink within 60 seconds of being in my house! What a Janna-move! And Chooch stole Chris almost immediately because he freaking claims her every time she and Monica come over and I have to fight the urge to cry, “She was my friend first!” But then I usually do end up crying about it. And then I tried to record Janna telling Wendy the story about how she became addicted to ‘Tussin, but she totally flipped out probably because it was time for another slurp and she was getting agitated.

•  Glenn’s New Nickname
  

Flockin Nockin for short, yo.

He called me simple AND slow this week. 

• See Also: Erin&Corey-ish

Finally, a way for the rest of the world to describe my brother and me!

• AMISH PEOPLE MOVIES

For some reason, our TV was like, stuck on the Up channel for days, and I had never heard of this channel before, but it all started with ironically watching 7th Heaven reruns while Henry was making dinner, and letting out dramatic OH NO!s and other such concerned interjections, and then I found myself watching that other 19 kids show, the ones that seem slightly less creepy than the Duggars, and all the while I kept seeing previews for some made-for-TV-movie called Love Finds You In Charm, which was clearly a spin-off of Love Finds You In Sugarcreek. Throw in some Jesus-y commercials, and I eventually realized I was watching some type of Christian person television channel. However, that didn’t stop me from, again, “ironically” watching Love Finds You In Charm, which quickly turned into me getting sucked in and crying, and Henry saying goodnight.  Basically, an Amish bitch chooses the right one, and not the creepy Englisher (THAT’S WHAT THEY CALL US!) who initially wooed her with his pompous talk of The Big City.

Amish people are amazing. I wish I had had an Amish baby. Thanks a lot, Chooch. Way to be born a fucking Englisher.

• ME N BAE

I like calling Henry “bae” because it is annoying as fuck and while I do most things in life with unabashed mediocrity, I am world-class at annoying the fuck out of one Henry Robbins. (And probably a small village full of other people too.) Except now I have a succulent named Bae too. OH WELL, THE MORE BAES THE BAE-IER.

• PGH SERIAL KILLER

One day last week I was carousing around town on my break and I could sense this man keeping pace behind me and naturally I was convinced he was a serial killer and I made Henry stay on the phone with me because I was in a sparsely populated area and totally freaking out and Henry was like “He is not going to kill you. Probably.” And then he wound up STANDING NEXT TO ME while we waited for the crosswalk light thingie to come on and I was trying to take his picture while keeping Henry on the phone and I could hear Henry saying, “Hello? Hello? What are you doing?” So then I let him pass me because I couldn’t take the anxiety of having him behind me anymore and then I was just like FUCK IT and went back to work because I was so stressed out and Glenn and Todd were like, “Why are you back so soon?” except that they really didn’t say that because they never notice when I’m there or not but don’t worry I told them anyway and then I showed them the picture and Todd was like, “That just looks like a man going to get some coffee.”  SO DID TED BUNDY.

• GAVE ALL THE VAMPIRES BACK TO GOD

Cold was my fucking jam for many years in my early 20s and I have been revisiting them a lot lately. So let’s end this shit show with one of my favorite Cold tracks, Sick of Man. Don’t keep your feelings hidden like a psycho, guys.

What’s a week without a blog post full of bulleted bullshit? Bulletproof, I guess. OH!

Behold, a list of things that don’t matter, but will they still be there if you don’t read them? DEEP THOUGHTS.

• This is a story about cherry cider, which will be relevant to those people who like cider and/or have eyeballs that like to look at letters no matter what words they fashion. On Memorial Day,Janna, Henry, Chooch and I went to Living Treasures in Donegal (THAT WILL BE ITS OWN POST, FEAR NOT FANS OF AMATEUR ANIMAL PICS). Once we hit a certain point, we began seeing handmade signs along the road boasting your typical indie fruit stand wares, like LOPES! and PEACHES! but then we saw one that said HOMEMADE CHERRY CIDER!Janna and I, in tandem, enthusiastically read the sign out loud in case Henry missed it, so that now he would know without us actually coming out and saying these exact words that we wanted to stop and get us some jugs of this sweet elixir. “On the way back,” he mumbled. And he actually remembered!
  • The fruit stand broad was not very personable. Perhaps because it was a beautiful day and she was stuck sitting alone on the side of some shitty road, staring at baskets of peaches that her dad probably made her pick the day before instead of going to the alley behind the soda shop to have sex with Billy. Henry and Janna quickly handed over their respective $7 and we rejoined Chooch, whom we left in the running car because he’s 9 now so who cares. “You took a picture of her, didn’t you?” Henry asked me when we pulled out onto the road. “What? No. Why?” I stuttered. “Because you should have seen the nasty look she gave you.” Technically, I took a picture of her…peaches. That made me hope that the cider was awful so that I could go on the dumb roadside fruit stand Facebook page and leave a scathing review.
  • But it was delightful.Goddammit!
    • Although Chooch’s review was a  shrug coupled with, “Eh. It’s kind of strong.”

• My group at work had a “global” meeting the other night with our Australian counterparts (we have a sister department in the Melbourne officein case you care), so our manager thought it would be fun for everyone to go around and say a fun fact about themselves, since we don’t really know much about the Australian team. When it was my turn, I totally panicked and blurted out, “I like clowns.” Which, OK, that’s a fact. But not a really fun one. And then immediately afterward I had major fun fact regret and why didn’t I tell them about the time I went to their dumb country to see The Cure? Why am I so stupid?! I had a fun fact that was actually relevant to them and I BLEW IT.
  • I thought for sure Glenn’s fun fact was going to be about bee keeping, but no. It was just that he has two old kids and one baby and then everyone APPLAUDED. WHY?! He doesn’t deserve applause. He deserves to be gonged. (You know, LIKE THE GONG SHOW.)
• Henry took me to work today. When we were walking to the front door, I noticed a pencil on the floor so I kicked it under the coffee table. “Why wouldn’t you just pick it up?” he asked. “Why should I?” the 13-year-old in me spit out. “Why should I,” he repeated, and shook his head.
  • The pencil is still under the table. AND THAT’S WHERE IT WILL STAY.
    • Until Chooch picks it up. It’s HIS pencil.

• ^^^^Kurt Travis, you guys. Heart eyes for days.
• Chooch had his spring concert last night at school (he’s in the chorus) and it was OK. I mean, of course it was great seeing my kid on stage, go kid,rah rah, but other than that, it was pretty boring. Henry’s mom came with us and she seemed to really enjoy it because she didn’t get the memo about it being uncool to enjoy these things. This is all neither here nor there. I’m only mentioning it because afterward, we were strolling around the school looking at student art and eating cookies (that’s all I cared about), when some tinybroad shouldered past us and gave Chooch A Look that I know quite well because it’s the same look I give people to this day when I want them to think that I hate them but I secretlylovethemsomuch/amstalkingthem. Anyway, it turns out it was some girl inChooch’s class that he used to love but now he’s paying attention to a different girl and can’t understand why first girl “hates” him. Oh Chooch. SO MUCH TO LEARN.
  • Henry still has to deal with this, but he’s on the scorned woman side of things.
  • Hot Naybor Chris was there! I took a picture of the back of his head and posted it on Facebook (Henry won’t let me post it anywhere else because Henry is the one with A Brain), and my friends Matt and Alyson were very excited about this, because they were the only two people who used to read my fake Henry diary on LiveJournal (mehoover) back in the day. Alyson hashtagged it #ABMHNC as a sarcastic nod to how A Beautiful Mess tacks ABM onto the front of like 78 different hashtags, like #ABMlifeisbeautiful #ABMcolorfulanalbeads and on and on. #HNC will be one of the few things I’ll miss if we ever move. He is awesome.
  • Speaking of #HNC, I told you guys a few mths ago that he has been gifting Henry with loaves of bread. Today, Henry’s mom was here and he gave her bread too! According to Henry, it was OLIVE LOAF. I started DRYHEAVING and Henry said in its defense, “hey, it’s hipster artisan bread! It’s baked with Wigle Whiskey.” <–suuuuuper trendy local whiskey company. 
• I use the various desks/cubes I’ve had in the last 5 years at The Law Firm to help me remember certain timelines. For instance: my Ernie’s Esquire obsession happened back when I sat where Icurrently sit for the first time, because I can picture myself talking to Barb about it and seeing her head from that vantage point, which is how I know it was 2012.
  • The whole point of this is to tell you that I am re-obsessed with Ernie’s Esquire for no reason and I googled it last night when I couldn’t sleep and saw that Ernie himselfwas interviewed in 2013 but I didn’t know that since I hadn’t researched since 2012. Anyway, you guys will never believe this: there was an auction there LAST WEEKEND. All of these old chairs and artwork from the 70s that I could have bid on and then lost, and I would have known if I had only re-obsessed over this a week earlier, UGH.
    • Ernie’s Esquire was A SUPPER CLUB that I had never heard of until, obviously, 2012, but all of the locations are closed now and Henry said that it was one of those “special occasion” places, but that it was pretty sordid behind-the-scenes and the picture I have painted in my head makes it look like the Playboy Mansion circa 1968. There are barely any pictures of this place online so I started asking old people questions about it and all people will say is, “Yeah…I ate there once or twice” but then NOTHING MORE. No details! It’s like Ernie’s is a set from a bad sci-fi flick where everyone has their memories (and palates) zapped clean upon leaving.  I find this very disturbing and I want more information so if you have any, spill.
• I started compiling a list of all the trouble my blog has gotten me into over the years and then I had to stop because…wow. It’s usually because I post a picture of an innocent stranger and then make wild accusations that they go to the alley behind the soda shop to have sex with Billy.
• When I was walking around on my break yesterday, I stumbled upon a flock of Hope Mennonites standing on a corner and singing church songs. YOU GUYS. I sincerely love these sorts of things (I mean, you obviously know all about my Amish obsession). There is just something exciting about side-stepping homeless people and junkies and then walking straight into Heaven’s gate, you know? I love the juxtaposition of “pure” religious sects (no, fingers—not “sext”; nice try) with the filthy urban Pittsburgh landscape. I didn’t want to blatantly Instavid them, so I went the creepy covert route and pretended to casually stroll by but I probably looked like T-Rex what with the way I was holding my phone into my body and stomping past suspiciously. In addition to the gaggle of singing Mennonites, pairs of them were strewn about the city, handing out Jesus literature and FREE CDs. All of these people were like NO! as they walked past, but when it was my turn I was like YES I WANT THAT STUFF. As soon as Henry picked me up from work, I slid the CD in and it played for about 5 minutes until I realized the entire thing was just some male voice narrating a fake Bible story about DIRK whoever the fuck DIRK is. Just kidding – #Dirk4L (Barb, that means DIRK 4 LYFE, or DIRK FOR LIFE.)

• I was recounting my Mennonite run-in to Henry and told him that one of the women was holding a BAG FROM CVS! “Well, they’re allowed to BUY things, Erin!” he cried all defensively so now I’m wondering if he dated a Mennonite run-away when he was living in BUNKER HILL during his SERVICE YEARS.

• You know at least 8 of those chaste, bonneted girls I saw yesterday have a future going to the alley behind the soda shop to have sex with Billy.
•  Glenn was talking about how hermit crabs are worthless so I told him that I once had two hermit crabs, Dijon and Tabasco. “I was going through an intense condiment phase,” I explained, and Glenn was like, “Wow. I can honestly say that’s something I’ve never heard before….and probably never will again.”
• Yesterday’s top search on my blog: “vanilla ice creammidgets on trampolines with aklondike bar shove it up your dickhole.” I think Henry has something like that on VHS from his SERVICE days…
  • That search was probably performed by one of those little Hope Mennonite boys, sneaking off to a filthy INTERNET CAFE.

Ummmm….I think that’s all for now. I feel so relieved to have gotten all of this off my stupid chest.

Some things were did recently. Did you did things too? Maybe someday we can did things together.

• It pains me to do this but I havetostart off by saying something….ni—-*gag*—-ce…about Henry. One day last week, I posted a blue corn waffle recipe to his Facebook timeline and in that sweet,adorableCAPSLOCK way of mine told him that this is what I would be having for breakfast on Sunday. The finishing touch of the waffle was a dollop of lavender cream and fresh blueberries. I am a raging slut for lavender-infused foodstuffs so this waffle was The One. Anyway, Henry didn’t even have any jerky comebacks about my request (like addressing the fact that I never actually said he had to make it, just that “I will be having this”)! So yes, Henry diligently went through the motions of looking at and comprehending a recipe and then stirring things, etc. Just typing that out made me feel so bored. Thank god eating the fuck out of that waffle was NOT boring. There were TWO differences in Henry’s version: he allegedly “couldn’t find” blue corn meal so he used regular-colored corn meal, and he did not garnish my plate with a beautiful flower like the picture called for in the cooking website I sent him. Boo hiss, Henry.
  • Oh! And what tied this whole splendid breakfast adventure together was a drizzle of pure maple syrup that my old boss gave Amber and me after she heard we won the waffle makers! Her friends live on a maple farm or something and make real maple syrup. When she brought it over to us, Glenn kept asking her all of these questions like, “But WHAT KIND of maple tree?” and Todd and I were like, “STFU Glenn, SRSLY.” Turns out, Glenn is really into “trees.” He didn’t even try to deny it. “Remember when Cheryl gave me those clown paintings and you got really excited about the FRAMES?!” I scream-laughed at him. He got this creepy far away look in his eyes, remembering those frames, and said, “Yeah…”

• Chooch got a rash over the weekend, which he originally thought was poison ivy. It was on the back of his shoulder so he asked me to take a picture so he could see it. He started flipping out because it was all red and kind of glistening, since Henry had just rubbed SALVE on it. I was like, “Look at it, all shiny and glistening like a Christmas ham” and he was like “THAT’S DISGUSTING STOP” so then when he asked me what was going to happen to him, I naturally told him that he was going to have to go to the hospital so that they could remove it from his body with a surgical tool similar to a cheese slicer, and by this point he was CRYING which was when I tried to take the above picture but he swiped at itandall of these words was just to tell you, “This is why this picture is blurry.”
  • It was not poison ivy. Neighbor Kid Marky threw a handful of grass at Chooch and Chooch is remarkably allergic to cut grass.
  • This is seriously up there in my Top 5 Favorite Perks of Parenting: fucking with my kid.
• It is a rare treat to find Henry’s phone attended, like a mermaid idling upon the couch cushion. This happened not once but TWICE in less than a week. The first time, ChoochwentontoHenry’sInstagram and made him follow theentireKardashian clanandthen I was like, “Oooh!Oooh! And Miley Cyrus!” andthen we were going to post a picture ofabutt on his behalf, but we couldn’t figure out to save photos on Henry’s lame non-iPhone and by that time, he figured out was going on and snatched it right off us. “DON’T BE ASSHOLES!” he growled and we just laughed. But then Monday night, it happened again! This time, I figured out how to save the butt picture and we hurriedly openedupInstagram and posted it with the caption “I love butts” but then dumbass Chooch couldn’t control himself andstartedlaugh-puking, which tipped off Henry and he stormed out of the kitchen and tried to grab it just I hit “post,” so then he grabbed MY phone and we hadaflat out wrestling match over each others’ phones while Chooch was gagging on his vomit by then. “YOU WAIT!” Henry tried to say in a threatening mob boss tone, which only made us laugh harder. Then he got his phone back and deleted the butt sprinkles. :(
  • BUT NOT BEFORE I SCREENSHOT IT! Bam, motherfucker. Nothing dies on the Internet!

• There was a knock at the door Sunday afternoon. I figured it was just Marky because he comes over in 10 minute intervals the entire weekend, but when I turned around, I could see the silhouette of a tall person through the frosted glass of the front door. “IT’S AN ADULT!” I screamed, scrambling up the steps. I don’t know you guys, but I blame the Squalor Years, where utility workers were constantly banging on our door to shut off our service. Even though those days are way in the past, I still get all jumpy when I hear knocking! I made it to the bedroom, sliding across the floor on my hip like a Bad News Bear, when Henry called up, “It’s not adult. It’s just Blake.” So then it went from SUNDAY DISRUPTION to SUNDAY SURPRISE. A visit from Blake is always welcome! He was going to the Story So Far show later that night and wanted to borrow a shirt from Henry because his was dirty. (The life of a 22-year-old, sigh.) But then I was like, “Who would ever want to borrow a shirt from HENRY?” I mean, unless you’re going as Plain for Halloween. In the end, he chose a black Faygo shirt even though he was slightly worried about getting bullied. (He was joking but that would have been a legit concern for myself.)

• Then Marky came over for real and everyone donned animal masks because it was Sunday and why not.
• I went to see “Heaven Adores You” at the Hollywood Theater Monday after work. It’s a documentary about Elliott Smith, who has been one of my favorite singers since I was a teenager. When he died in 2003, I cried actual tears; it was like losing a friend. So,Iwaspreparedto be sitting & crying alone in a darkened theater that night, and as expected, I started crying as soon as it started. If you are/were a fan of his, I recommend this film. It was a gift to see these old interviews and clips of performances by him, as well as hearing friends and band mates tell their version of who Elliott Smith was. It brought back memories of being 18 and living in my first apartment, watching the Oscars with Psycho Mike on my tiny TV that sat on a wooden crate, just because I wanted to see Elliott perform “Miss Misery.” My friend/sort of roommate Heather bought me two of his albums that year for my birthday, and it’s one of those seemingly random things I’ll always associate with him even though Heather and I haven’t hung out since…1999 I think? Acknowledging the music I like is a sure way to my heart.
  • I live only a few blocks away from the theater, but it was storming so hard  that Henry dropped me off. It was actually perfect weather for that film.
• • I had to wait until the very last credit rolled up the screen before finally attempting to leave the theater because I couldn’t get my body to stop shuddering from all the crying I did. I am a fucking mess anymore.
  • It had stopped raining by the time I left the theater so I was able to walk home, probably looking like I had just had some awful domestic dispute.
  • I so badly wish he was still alive. </3
    • If you don’t know who he is, spoiler alert: he died on 10/21/03 of two stab wounds to the heart. The coroner never officially ruled it a suicide, and a lot of people think someone did it to him, but I guess no one will ever know. This film wasn’t about his death though, but his life. And I appreciated that his death wasn’t sensationalized.
  • Now I really want to watch Good Will Hunting forthe734097023748b2453th time.
    • This song forever.

• Oh man, Henry had a Professional Truck Driving Boner yesterday when we came across this car-transporting truck that fatally* attempted to make a right turn when TRUCKS WERE NOT ALLOWED TO DO SO, and he ended up fucking up his truck and blocking an intersection. “OH HE CAN’T DO THAT. ANY DECENT TRUCK DRIVER KNOWS YOU CAN’T MAKE A TURN LIKE THAT. OH, HE FUCKED HIS TRUCK UP BAD!!!” And he had this smug look on his face like this is something that they teach on the first day of Truckers Academy, right after How to Wear a Trucker Cap Without Looking Like Kevin Federline 101.

• I write bulletpoint posts because it fills the void that was left when texting replaced actual telephone conversations. Imagine, while you read this, that WE ARE ON THE PHONE TOGETHER, painting our toenails with our hair wrapped in a towel, gotta go the milk man’s here!

• Speaking of painting nails, Chooch has been into painting his nails again, which he usedto be into when he was three. Here is a picture of him holding a grilled cheese at Eat n Park with chipped fingernail-polished hands. Nothing even remotely exciting happened here other than Chooch slamming his head off the door when we walked in and the manager frantically asking us if we were missing an order of pancakes, which we were not. A waitress was cleaning the table behind us and informed us that there were mystery pancakes in the kitchen and no one could figure out where they belonged. Then we got our check and Henry noticed that there was an order of blueberry pancakes on there, so the waitress must have accidentally hit the wrong button and WOW is this *a boring story! DON’T WORRY WE WEREN’T CHARGED FOR IT.
  • See? Chooch at the fair in 2009, with delicate, ebon nails:

• Therapy:

Wow, this might be in the running for most boring bullet point post ever.

Quick! Let’s huff the fuck out of this blog post.

• Wendy and I had lunch at Villa Reale on Friday and she let me have the leftover pizza, and kept saying, “MAKE SURE YOU REMEMBER TO TAKE IT HOME TONIGHT” and I felt so panicked about forgetting and letting her down, so I had to write myself a note on my hand, and then I drew a picture as an extra reminder because I’m 35 and you can’t tell me what to do. (But really, who can forget about pizza?)
  • Speaking of pizza, I know that it’s like super trendy all of a sudden to be a pizza connoisseur, and I love me some pizza too, but I’m still grilled cheese’s #1. Also, I’m super picky about pizza and do not subscribe to the “even bad pizza is good pizza” ideology. (I mean, I’ll still eat it. Usually*.)
    • *I threw an entire pizza across the house one time because I hated it. (It had onions on it. CRUNCHY ONIONS.) Ask Henry. It was during our first year dating and he came back after that, for some reason.

• Can you believe Henry had the audacity to send me this text this morning? I was like, “FUCK OFF YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO” so I left the house without a “light jacket.” I figured I would be OK because I was wearing a sweater. Wrong. It was pretty chilly. So then I called Henry on my walk to the trolley and complained about being chilly because I’m 35 and you can’t tell me what to do!!
• Yesterday, I bailed out Todd at work (as usual! It’s hard work being everyone’s savior), so he was calling me She-Ra, which made me super happy. But then today, he said it again and I realized he was actually saying “She-ro,” like a female hero, and I mean, that was still cool but it’s no She-Ra. So then Todd was like, “WTF is a She-Ra, anyway?” and Amber¹ and I were like, “GTFO how do you not know who She-Ra is, she’s the motherfucking Princess of Power, for fuck’s sake” so then that turned into an early morning discussion and I felt inspired to make a She-Ra Glenn. While I was drawing it, I had some mad deja vu, so I checked the poster board of orginal Glenns and sure enough, I had already made a She-Ra Glenn in 2012. “Way to be redundant,” Glenn mumbled.

• Speaking of awesome 80’s cartoons, we also discussed our annoyance at the new Jem and the Holograms movie coming out this fall. First, Sandy and I yelled to each other about it across the floor and then when Amber¹ got here later, she and I talked about it too, so then I told Allison that if there is one thing she takes away from work today, I hope it’s that broads in their 30s are very upset about the Jem and the Holograms movie. Of course Allison was like, “I don’t even know what Jem is because I’m not an old person.”

• My friend Kelly tweeted this to me the other day and I was like FUCK YES and then rubbed it in Henry’s face. He was like, “OK, I never said I didn’t like them.” Seriously though, I 100% don’t expect people to like the music I post on here, or even bother listening to it in the first place, so when something like this happens, I feel like a tiny victory over Top 40 music has been won. <3
  • P.S. It occurred to me that I didn’t ask Kelly if I could post this, so I used some trusty Catwangs to protect her Twitter identity from you fools.

• Here is a photographical quad of my child whining and sweating. This was pre-Ulta melt-down on Saturday. Sticker book or not, I don’t think Henry really stood a chance that night. When Chooch gets in a mood, NOTHING HELPS.
• Henry was apparently “mad” at me all day yesterday (lol) but he still picked me up from work and proceeded to “ignore me” which just made me crack up, so then he started cracking up too because HE CAN’T STAY MAD AT MY ADORABLE TURTLE FACE.

• #SPOONSELFIE. Chooch was angry about this one when he saw it. #HenryJr. The novelty of The Spoon has not worn off yet.
• So, two years ago, we were “Those People” who got suckered into buying some vacation package at the COUNTY FAIR. The COUNTY FAIR, you guys. Anyway, it was for a few nights at some resort in Williamsburg, VA and it is totally one of those timeshare things where you have to sit through some excruciating presentation. But, it was cheap, the resort is beautiful, and we got the Busch Gardens hook-up, which is clearly the only reason Williamsburg would ever be on my radar. We only have two years to use it and Henry FINALLY made our reservations for my birthday week in July and I am so fucking stoked about this because once we’re done tearing shit up in Virginia, we’re making our way down to Savannah and Tybee Island to meet up with my amazing gypsy friend Octavia and her family! I love planning vacations around out-of-town friends. One day, I WILL MEET YOU ALL.
  • I originally said that Henry has to sit through this timeshare thing on his own, but he was like, “Oh no no no this was your idea and we both have to do it” and at first I was like, “I’m 35 and you can’t tell me what to do” but then I pictured the giggle-vomiting that’s bound to happen once I’m in that room. YOU ASKED FOR IT, HENRY.

• ^Sign of a good weekend! The events that these wristbands belong to will be written about later this week (I promise, Monica!). They were some good times!

• Yesterday was Janna’s birthday! Bottoms up, you Robitussin lush!

• Chooch waited until 9:00PM Sunday night to try to learn how to crochet. I’m sure you can guess how that went. Lots of rage and tears. “TAKE ME TO CHRIS AND MONICA’S SO THEY CAN HELP ME!” he wailed. Henry was like, “Sure. I don’t have a problem with that. They might, though.”

Ciao for now!

Bullet points, my favorite blogging cop-out! This will be especially beneficial to me since HENRY has been going to bed early all week and I haven’t had anyone to talk to at night! Lots to get off my chest. *(I started writing this on Thursday and now it’s Friday…so Thriday.)

• I’m currently extremely stressed out about hockey. If the Penguins lose tonight in New York, they’re done, you guys. Hockey heartbreak, every goddamn spring. (Game started. We’re losing.)
• Maternity Leave Amber had her baby on Monday! Super stoked for her, and even more stoked for her to come back to work. That’s soon, right? Like, yesterday? :(
  • In other work news, Barb’s replacement started on Monday. I’m too sad/numb to write anything more about that. SIGH. BARB. 
    • Except that I mentioned to Nate that at least it’s not Henry’s ex-wife. Nate said, “What if it was her?! Hashtag awkward.” I said, “Then one of us would probably be dead,” and Nate said somberly, “Hashtag dead.” That was a real, verbatim conversation that I might need to remember one day. You’re welcome, Future Erin.
• I don’t think I’ve been on this level of excitement for Warped Tour since maybe 2008 or 2009. I seriously think about it everyday and my special edition Choonimals 3D ticket came last week so now I’m really jumping around the house like a freak. I was making Henry watch Warped Tour survival videos on YouTube Wednesday night and he was like “And you wonder why I want to go to bed at 7:30 every night.”
  • I want Henry to make his own Warped Tour survival video now!! And then he can link to his OOTD (Barb, that means “outfit of the day”) video at the end.

• Rude things Henry has said to me this week:
  • I’m cheap and easy
  • I’m a toaster-operating moron (SORRY IF I DIDN’T KNOW THERE IS A TIME LIMIT FOR POP-TARTS?!)
  • I sound like a clown when I sneeze (actually a compliment, so fuck you, Henry)
  • I’m stuck-up
• Speaking of being stuck-up, yesterday my new workBFF Allison told me that shewas scared of me on her first day and that she thought I was goingto be “the mean one” of the group because she sat across from me in a meeting and I looked mad. “Oh, I always look like that in those meetings!” I laughed. And then I added, “How could you think I was mean when I have so much awesome stuff on my desk? Like zombie stuff and….” “Yeah, that didn’t do much to help,” Allison laughed.
  • This made me think of a few weeks ago when Amber the Original AG¹ told me that when she first started working at The Law Firm in 2011, I was only working late shift then so she never actually saw me, but one time she had to walk past my desk. And based on that, she had this impression that I was a really scary goth person. One time she was working late shift too, and one of the analysts (Tyler; he left in 2012 and we all still miss him so much!) came back to his office near Amber’s desk and mentioned off-handedly that he was over on the other side, talking to me, and Amber was like, “EW WHY!?” But then she finally met me and realized that I am an adorable sweetheart baby doll thing. I love this story!
• I’m still on a heavy Pvris kick. Lynn makes the hairs stand up on my arms like whoa.

• My expression upon finding out that Henry has never heard Cutting Crew’s “Been In Love Before” was the same as when I found out he votedforDubya.
  • Shock and disgust. On my face.
• Me: “Marcy taught me about unconditional love.” Henry: Well, you didn’t learn much.”
• Guys, remember when Henry pitched a fit because I didn’t turn off the lights and TV and lock the door last week? PROOF THAT I LISTENED:

Corey’s comment about my lock-turning seeming rusty is spot-on, you guys. Also, I was bragging about some person commenting that I’m “seriously the best” and “so funny and pretty,” and Henry was like, “Yeah. I saw that. That kid is like 7.” But still. It’s a step-up from my imaginary friend saying it. Kind of.

• Last Friday, Sandy arranged a late shift happy hour. It was the first happy hour I was able to make it to in A LONG TIME and it was really great. Even though Lou and Ethan were with us. But Lucas was there too and that was only the second time I’ve hung out with him outside of work in 5 years. (The first was last September when we were volunteer mulchers. That was pretty terrible.) The reason I’m mentioning this is because I realized that in the last almost-year that I’ve been in my current position, I actually feel like I’m part of the department again, and even though I might still have “bad” days here and there (who doesn’t?), I really am so much happier now. I can’t really write too much on here aboutthedarkside of my job because let’s be a Smart Blogger, right? But I just feel a lot more appreciated now and it’s nice to hear a “thank you for your help today” every now and again, you know?
  • And also because Ethan was whining about wanting a corned beef sandwich (we were at Sammy’s and theirs’ are “famous”) but not unless someone else would get one too because he didn’t want to be the only person eating, but I was like, “Corned beef is a vegetarian’s nightmare” and Lou was like, “Corned beef is disgusting” and Sandy was too fixated on the popcorn situation. So finally, Lucas was like, “Fine. I’ll get one too” and then they got up to go to the corned beef counter together, like two girls who couldn’t go to the bathroom alone.

• Henry finally got his hair cut so no more topknot.Whompwhomp.
  • In other top knot news, Henry flipped out because I wanted coffee but I refused to go into the coffee place we were near because I’m allergic to hipsters. (WHY DO THEY HAVE TO HAVE GOOD TASTE IN COFFEE?! I want them to just be satisfied with Starbucks or McCafe.) When Henry came back to the car, he shoved my iced coffee at me and said, “AND THE GUY HAD A TOP KNOT!” Oh Henry.
  • I accidentally (I’m 35 and still insist spelling this “accidently”) watched a recent Jonny Craig video on YouTube and stated cracking up because I forgot he too is going through a topknot phase.
    • As if Henry is actually “going through a topknot phase.” That knot was on top of his head for approx. 8 seconds last week.

• Tuesday (4/21) was Robert Smith’s birthday! I always feel strange on this day because I’m like YAY ROBERT I LOVE YOU but also I can’t help but remember that it’s my quitiversary from that awful meat place I worked at for 4 years. Coincidentally,thelady I shared an office with (a/k/a my Original Work Mom, Carol) commented on this picture I posted of Robert on Facebook and said, “Still perfectly coiffed as always.” I drove her nuts with my constantCurefan-girling. I miss her. I should make her go to lunch with me soon.
  • I wore my Robert pendant to work and made sure to tell everyone it’s his birthday because this is important. When ItoldA-ron, he said, “Oh, The Smiths, right?” totally on purpose and I shouted down the hall at him, “THAT’S OFFENSIVE!” Then I came back to my desk and told Glenn and Todd, who didn’t get it, so I scoffed, “Robert and Morrissey hate each other. Everyone knows that!”
    • GOD!!!
  • Then I was mad because the AltPress instagram posted a birthday picture of Robert and all these bratty kids hijacked the post, whining that it was some Black Veil Bride asshole’s birthday too, totally taking away from Robert, so then AP gave that d-bag his own birthday shoutout, like who cares about a BVB birthday!? Ugh. THAT’S OFFENSIVE.
• The most exciting thing that happened today was when I was pulling folders out of a filing cabinet and got  A REALLY BAD PAPER CUT. It was basically the HNNGGGGGH  heard around the department. It was kind of embarrassing how many far away people stopped in their tracks and said, “Oh no, paper cut?” (OK, two people.) My first instinct was to cry, “AND I DON’T HAVEANYMORECANDYLANDBANDAIDS!” which made Todd lose it. Glenn was like, “Oh for Christ’s sake” and got me a boring, old person bandage out of his dumb drawer. He even opened it for me! “We’re going to hear about this all day,” he muttered after I snatched it from him.
  • When Gayle got to work, I stopped her and cried, “I GOT A PAPER CUT TODAY,GAAAAAAYLE” and then we were all talking about how shocked we were that Glenn cared enough to give me a bandage but he said, “You didn’t see the Bio-Hazard sticker on it?” Ugh.
    • Then I washed my hands and it started to fall off, so I used some leftover Jesus stickers from last year’s Easter Glenn Hunt to hold it together:

    

    • Fuck this week.

It’s Thursday. Let’s have words.

• It’s Food Drive season as work and the person in charge for our department is kind of mean about it and her emails lack the proper amount of enthusiastic punctuation so I have not felt inclined to donate any dusty cans of stewed tomatoes that might have fallen behind the kitchen shelf. (I save those for Warped Tour so I can skip the line!) But then Sue sent out an email today that said anyone who brings in a jar of peanut butter tomorrow can wear jeans, so I will be doing that. Actually, I asked Glenn as he was leaving if he would bring in one for me but he just tossed me a scowl over his shoulder, so I feel like I shouldn’t put too much stock in him.
  • There is also a bake sale happening in order to raise money for the Food Bank, which would be awesome if I wasn’t forever on a diet.
• Tonight is Game 1 of the Pens/Rangers playoff series and I am not anticipating it one bit. We barely even made it into the playoffs this year so my hopes are not very high. Actually, my hopes don’t even exist.
  • Someone brought in a pan of brownies for the food drive bake sale and my hockey anxiety has me considering bringing the whole fucking pan back to my desk.
• YOU GUYS yesterday after Henry picked me up from work, I swear to God I saw Paul Eugene walking down the sidewalk!! Henry was like, “That is not him” and I said, “SCREAM PAUL EUGENE OUT THE WINDOW!!!” but Henry wouldn’t so I guess now we’ll never know.
• There’s some article going around on Facebook about how Brookline is “suddenly hip” and I’m a bit irritated that no one thought to consult me for this newsworthy write-up.
  • And then that same day, there was a stand-off in Brookline, so….
  • Also, I find it concerning that there was no mention of all the hip drunks around town.
• My Dance Gavin Dance pre-order finally was delivered yesterday! I was frantically tracking it all morning and when I saw that it had been delivered at 10:33am, this went down:

OK so yay! Henry left work to get my package off the front porch, but then he just LEFT IT IN THE HOUSE!? Like, he couldn’t have brought it downtown for me!? So then I texted him later in the afternoon because I wanted to remind him to bring the CD with him when he came to pick me up so that I could listen to it in the car, but he said he wasn’t going home firat first!?

THE WORST!!!!!! Then last night, Henry saw that I posted these screencaps on Instagram and he claims that “No problem” was something he had sent to me earlier in the morning about something else, but “for some reason” it resent it after my crazy text torrent. I’m actually inclined to believe him because when I first got that text, I thought to myself, “Wow. What an even-keeled response to my CAPSLOCK jamboree.”

Me, after coming home from work and tearing open the package. 

• In other DGD news, I’ve been talking about them so much that Todd felt inclined to listen to their new album yesterday on Spotify, He made it about 20 seconds into the first song before stopping to share his commentary: “It was real mellow at first, like some Adam Levine shit, but then all of a sudden it turned metal…?” And then later he asked, “Why are they so angry?!” And that’s funny, because to me this isn’t angry music at all!
• Today, Glenn was like “Well? Where’s all your gear?” And I was like “My what now?” “Your gear. All the gear you got yesterday that we had to hear about all day.” LOL. “Gear.” Like anyone calls it that!!!
• Here at work, when we’re not all gushing over the new DGD album, we’ve been on some hardcore Amber G. Baby Watch. I have been checking in with her every day and reporting back to everyone, but I’m trying not to be some crazy Birth Sentinel because I know that would annoy me if people were constantly texting me about my dilation status. It’s going to be so weird when she comes back to work and isn’t pregnant anymore, because I think we all had grown so accustomed to tip-toeing around her. (She could be pretty snarly in her pregnant state!)

• • Maybe tonight’s hockey game will induce labor.
• A conversation that happened last night while watching Breaking Bad:

Me: “Can I give you a top knot?”
Henry: “What is a top knot….?”
Me: “Just say yes.”
Henry: “No.”
Me: *gives him top knot anyway*
Henry: “WHAT IS IT?! No!”

His new look was wildly celebrated on Facebook, but he shockingly did not wear it to work today.

• Hay guys, the hockey game just started and the Rangers scored 20-some seconds in. MAYBE I’LL HAVE A BROWNIE AFTER ALL.
• Amber, did you have your baby yet?
• This might be the dumbest blog post title I’ve ever made up. I quit. 
• Chooch has been on a Fall Out Boy kick recently (primarily their recent album) and I got to be That Person who bragged about seeing them in 2004, pre-commercial success, when all of my friends were like, “WHO are you going to see?!” (Oh wait, that’s present-day too!)
• Today, I made the mistake of telling Glenn that my knee hurt. I tweaked it a few months ago when I was exercising and every now and then it starts hurting again. So glenn offered me “Advil” and I stupidly took it without checking to make sure it was legit and not something he cut in the woodshed/lab in his backyard. His fake drugs did not cure my knee but I think there was a connection between that and my extreme drowsiness all day. Luckily, my new BFF Allison gave me real, name brand Advil later on and then my knee felt OK. 
• UM, so I have been home from late shift for like 2 hours and just noticed that there was an envelope addressed to me, casually strewn upon the dining room table. The return address was THE ARTERY FOUNDATION so I knew immediately that it was going to bey handwritten DGD lyrics and IT WAS so I flipped out on Henry and screamed HOW LONG WERE YOU GOING TO HIDE THIS FROM ME?! and he claims he “didn’t know” what it was?! I was like THE POSTMARK CLEARLY STATES THAT ITS FROM SACRAMENTO WHAT ELSE WOULD I POSSIBLY BE GETTING FROM SACRAMENTO?! My god Henry fails as a scene kid’s boyfriend. I guess now that he wears a topknot, he’s only interested in watching Coachella videos on YouTube. 

• Amber, did you have the baby yet?

In today’s installment of How Not to Fall Off the Ledge, let’s discuss some things that induce happiness, such as….

• Wendy’s inability to operate an umbrella:
  
• Getting to see my buddy Nina and her adorable boys while they’re visiting from Virginia:

Before we left for lunch with Wendy, Little Q was all over my desk, but what kid wouldn’t be!? He tried to walk off with one of my zombie finger puppets, so I traded him two fingers, which he seemed content with, especially since one was wearing an eyeball ring which he turned into a “trophy.” Then he chased Marlene around with them and she was all, “Oh gee, I wonder where you could have gotten FINGERS from.”

Nina asked if it was OK that Q  kept them, and I was like, “Sure, I have more!” But then I came back later and pouted about it. (Just kidding! But Q better remember me the next time I see him.)

• My friends & family. All of them: real life, online, work (even the frenemies like Glenn, Ethan and Todd) who have been kind to me all week during this hard time. Losing a pet is an ache like no other. I’m lucky to have so many amazing people who have been popping over to say they understand, or texting from other states, or offering to ply me with ice cream. Or just distracting me with their IRRITATING BANTER, UGH GLENN.
• A boyfriend who makes his girlfriend one of her favorite desserts (strawberry shortcake!) in a valiant effort to keep her from defenestration.

• Thinking about last week’s hockey game that Chooch and I went to, which is on tap to be written about, but…you know. Anyway, I still want to mention it because it makes me happy every time I think back to the fun time we had.
• We had a Biggest Loser challenge at work and I came in #2! I lost 14.something pounds. I excitedly told Glenn that I came in second, and he mumbled, “You’ll always be the biggest loser to me.”
• EASTER! I don’t know how it happened, but somewhere along the way, Easter has become a holiday that I actually enjoy, which is strange because it was the first one that occurred after my Pappap died, which got the ball rolling for my family to stop giving a shit about celebrating holidays. So for a while, I did associate it with that. But now I think about springtime and being religiously idiotic and thinking of the non-traditional things that me, Henry and Chooch can do that day. It’s supposedto be beautiful on Sunday, so I predict that we will be spending most of it outdoors, and then Corey is going to join us for dinner at whichever random Chinese restaurant happensto be open.
  • Most importantly, though, I’m excited because we still have to take our Easter bunny portraits! If you’ve been pissing around on this blog for the last few years, you know that we haven’t done the whole formal mall Easter bunny thing in forever, probably not since Chooch was three. It started as an accident, where we literally just forgot to take him to the mall, so we had to do a last minute picture with Henry wearing a plastic rabbit mask. And now it’s like, why pay all that money to get a picture with the same rabbit every year when we can just do it ourselves? So, finalizing the theme has been a beautiful distraction for me this week. Can’t wait to get this done tomorrow!

• The guest post I wrote for the Pittsburgh Guest Blog Exchange! Did you read it? DID YOU?! It’s about Mister Rogers and there is a companion painting, so you should go and look.
• SHATTERED DREAMS:

• Thinking of the future and not dwelling on the past. I’m letting myself mourn and grieve, for sure (come on, this emo girl ain’t changing her ways) and there have been plenty of times when I have just fucking lost it in the shower, but it’s not going to bring her back. So instead of immersing myself up to my head in the sadness pond, I have been thinking of ways to honor Marcy. Obviously, a tattoo. But that can’t happen right away, so in the meantime, I’m having a memorial dinner for her next Saturday, at the one restaurant that has always brought me a sense of comfort, Blue Flame. I’m just excited to be with friends and reminisce about how evil and amazing and beautiful and scary Marcy was. I fucking miss her so much and this sucks. But…happy thoughts.

There is so much to be happy about, and sometimes the doom and gloom just needs to go and fuck itself.

Today I’m going to pretend that everything is alright. I’m going to smile a lot and give high-fives. I’m going to text some people I have done a poor job of keeping in touch with. I’m going to focus on the positive. I’m also going to BULLET POINT THE FUCK OUT OF LIFE TODAY! Join me, won’t you?

• I finally bought my tickets for Circa Survive today. Afterward, I turned around and said to Glenn, “If you’re planning on going to the Circa Survive show at Mr. Small’s, you better get your tickets soon. It could sell out.” He mumbled something like, “I’ll be sure to.”
• This is the start of the third week in my new/old desk location and I’m still loving it. Now that I sit near Amber¹ and Todd, we talk about really interesting things like THE REAL WORLD. Seriously, Glenn was off last Friday so wewere able to freely converse about past Real World seasons for nearly an hour without Old Grouchy Glenn here to convo-block us. I’m sure everyone around us was super excited to relive the time Ruthie nearly drank herself to death in Hawaii.
  • Speaking of, this season of The Challenge was one of my favorites. So much drama!
  • This reminds me of all of the convos I used to have with Bob at my old job about The Real World, and how annoyed Collin would get. God, memories!!
• I love Easter because of shit like this:

• I was excited last week because it felt like spring for real for one whole day and I thought to myself, “Woo! The season of gratuitous ice cream cone photos is upon us!” And then it snowed for the next two days.
• Last week, I was walking aimlessly around Pittsburgh on my break, like I often do, I passed a woman who was screaming, “A PERSON CAN ONLY TAKE SO MUCH!” to the guy she was with. I was like, “AMEN SISTER” except that I only just thought it because ew, talking to people. But then I passed them again a few minutes later and it became clear to me that she was pretty unhinged. She kept shrieking, “STAY AWAY FROM ME! LEAVE ME ALONE!” and then she would let forth this blood-curdling, hysteric eagle-scream. I was like, “Why does that sound familiar—-oh.” It totally reminded me of Erin and Henry: the Early Years. I didn’t get a FUCK who saw me raving like a lunatic back then. Thank god I’ve acquired a veil of self-awareness, huh Henry? Henry?
• I spent all of this time regaling Henry with the time in high school when I discovered that “Owner of a Lonely Heart” was a Yes song. For years and years, I was sure it was the Police and could never understand why I couldn’t find it on any of their albums every time I went music shopping. And then I looked over at Henry and he had this glazed look in his eyes. Ugh, sorry I wasn’t talking about THE SERVICE or grocery shopping.
  • Speaking of grocery shopping! Henry roasted brussels sprouts, beets, and kohlrabi for me on Saturday and it was like falling in love with him all over again. I never ate vegetables, not really, until we started dating and he was like, “WTF kind of vegetarian doesn’t eat vegetables” and I was like, “The kind who doesn’t eat anything that isn’t delivered to her front door?”

• OMG OMG we have a new person here in our group to help us out once Amber-About-to-Pop is away on maternity leave. After Amber came back from the interview two weeks ago, she said to me, “I think this one is the best fit out of all of them. She actually reminded me of you.” I got super excited and cried, “REALLY?!” to which Amber said, “Well, I mean…she probably doesn’t have a DEVIL RUG…” Anyway, her name is Allison and she started last Monday. She’s only 21! I was really excited when I found out and told Glenn as such. “Finally, someone here I can relate to!” I said. “Oh, don’t even try to pretend you’re 21!” Glenn spat. But I just mean that we are probably interested in the same things! I made the mistake of telling Glenn that I couldn’t wait to ask her what kind of music she listens to, but he got to train her before I did and as soon as she sat down behind me, he blurted out, “SO WHAT KIND OF MUSIC DO YOU LIKE?!” and I whipped around so fast to glare at him. Then he had the audacity to ask her if she likes Pierce the Veil!
  • For the record, she does not know who they are.
  • On Allison’s fourth day here, we had cake and milk for O Pregnant Amber. Allison and I were loitering togetheroutside of Mitch’s office, talking about being vegetarians. When I told her that I have been a vegetarian since 1996, she exclaimed, “So like what, since you were five?!” THIS GIRL CAN STAY.
    • Wendy is super jealous because now my attention is divided.
  • I told Amber the Abandoner that I’m so excited to teach Allison things. “Yeah, you’ve been a big help with training her, thanks!” she said. “Oh, no. I’m talking about COOL THINGS, not dumb work stuff.” Amber just rolled her eyes. She does that a lot.
• I found this old picture of Blake and Chooch and got all of the mushy-feels:

• Apparently, I chirp “Oh for fuck’s sake” so frequently, that Henry now tries to guess when I’m going to say it so he can say it first.
• Last week, Nate told  Amber “Baby’s Gender? Surprise Me!” G. that she should name the baby Cucumber if it’s a girl, because she was eating a cucumber at the time. But I thought Nate was suggesting that Amber name her cucumber, which made me blurt out, “I had a pet orange and French fry in high school! Marcus Orangerelius and Frieda.” And then when Nate was like *slooooooow nod*, I tacked on, “I swear I had real friends, too.”
• Call me from a blocked number so I know it’s real, amirite.
• I’m really mad at my job, currently, and it is making me act like a cry baby.
• <3H<3 (Full disclosure: This photo was from when I was sucking up to Henry because I wanted a ride to work. Spoiler alert: I took the trolley that day.)

That might be all she wrote. If she thinks of anything else, she will come back and add on.

I have really been phoning it in lately. Yes, I’m aware. But this is not going to be the post that changes any of that. Just kind of stating the obvious I guess.

Here are some pictures of things that happened this past week.

We went rollerskating on Saturday. I really thought that this was going to be the winter where we would get back into the skating game, but it just wasn’t to be. Our weekends have been pretty full, but when I realized that nothing was going on Saturday, I told Henry that this is what we would be doing and, as he tucked his dick between his legs, nodded obediently. Kara and Harland met us there, so that was fun even though I barely got to talk to Kara because hello, I’m too busy being a goddamn dream on wheels out there, OK?

And Henry was sad because he apparently hurt his foot in another pallet-related accident (WTF goes on at the Faygo Plant!?) so he did not rent skates and instead leaned against the wall and watched everyone else whirrr past under the flashing lights. God, cry me a river of Dorothy Hamill tears.

We are definitely done with Neville Rollerdrome and have chosen Romp-n-Roll as our new headquarters. It’s a pretty great spot and just feels more roller-rinky than Neville. The sad reality is that really no matter where we go, we’re going to be terrorized by kids who can’t skate, so I’m trying to just get over that.

I got to talk to Kara for about five minutes when I finally came off the rink for hydration. Apparently, she had Harland in the side room, which is kind of like a mini-rink except that there are pool tables in the middle. Either way, it’s a good spot for non-skaters to practice, so she was trying to help Harland when Professional Skater Henry stepped in and began instructing him, because even when he’s not skating, he has to remind everyone that he’s a better skater than me, god fucking dammit.

Highlights:

• Some dickhead came out onto the rink with candy and spilled it, which subsequently led to people skating over bits of Skittles and grinding it into the floor. So the DJ stopped the music, turned on the lights, and told everyone to stop where they were. He explained the sitch and asked us if we could all take a few minutes to look around where we were stopped and see if we could find any candy shards and if so, to please dump it into the hands of a skate guard or take it to the DJ booth. This way, they wouldn’t have to shut down the session for however long it took them to clean the whole rink. I was so excited because I FOUND ONE RIGHT WHERE I HAD STOPPED! It was orange and I almost fell when I went to pick it up, but it was worth it for the opportunity to triumphantly glide over to the DJ booth and announce with authority, “I FOUND THIS.” On my way there, I passed Henry in the snack room and shot my hand up in the air so he could see my candied treasure. Later, he told me he didn’t know what I was doing. Fuck you, Henry.
• Not falling.
• No terrible Goldilocks issues with the rental skates.
• The DJ starts out the session with some old school jams, and that makes me happy. Of course, it veers into hott urban joints after that, with some T.Swift sprinkled in, but what can you do. I also appreciated that he’s on a first-name basis with the singers. He’d be all, “Next up, here’s Sammmmmmm” and it would be some Sam Smith song (they all kind of sound the same to me). Or “Heyy! It’s time for some Ed.” And then Ed Sheeran would soundtrack my hazardous laps around a rinkful of birthday party-goers who were having their hands held by their parents WHO DID NOT HAVE SKATES ON. Ugh, people shouldn’t be allowed on the rink without skates. Wait…hold on…

Lowlights:

• PEOPLE WERE ON THE RINK WITHOUT SKATES! And one woman had her BABY STROLLER OUT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE RINK. I couldn’t even wrap my head around this. If this was Neville, she’d have had a major whistle blown at her skanky suburban ass.
• When Henry didn’t know I found one of the candy perps. :(
• Their rink policing SUCKS. I told Kara I want to be a rink ref and she was like, “But then you’d have to yell at people all day” and I was like, “INORITE!? AND BLOW A WHISTLE.”
• Some little bitch in a Snow White dress nearly killed me probably the same amount of times she watches Frozen in a week. I honestly almost shoved her once because BITCH MOVE OUT THE WAY.
• People are allowed to have their phones on the rink and every time I saw someone take a selfie-in-motion, I had to fight the urge to shoulder them into the wall.
• Also, some people would congregate in small, idle groups on the rink, not even near the walls, but right in the prime skating path, and they would just stand there and TALK. Like they were IN A PARK PAVILION. Or near a WATER COOLER. Unacceptable.

After skating, we ate dinner at some old folks joint in Glenshaw called The Boulevard and it was really quaint! Totally one of those places where all the old people have standing relationships with the waitstaff.  “Why haven’t we ever eaten here before?” I wondered out loud, and Henry answered, “Because we’re never in Glenshaw?” And Henry was one of the youngest people there!

Then I was just sad that we’re not regulars anywhere.

Sunday chin-scratches. I had a dream a few weeks ago that Marcy had a horse penis and also had this huge growth on her stomach which turned out to be a pug. Like, an entire dog just hanging off her stomach. I guess it’s because I’ve been so stressed out because she’s old and has breast cancer and everyday I’m like IS SHE BREATHING!? And Henry will calmly answer, “Yes, Erin. She was also trying to sleep but your big mouth just woke her up.”

The other night, Marcy was sitting on the couch with us and I kept saying, “I love you!” to her in a panoply of accents and strangulated voices. “Aren’t you glad that I keep all of my voices on lock while I’m at work so that I can come home and unleash them all over the house?” I asked Henry.

“Yeah. Totally,” he sighed.

Henry bought me this shirt at the Pierce the Veil show a few weeks ago. <3

Ironing Perler bead creations: What is Henry’s life.

Behold the most majestic ground-sheath. Chooch has come to terms with it and even helped me unroll it. Henry was just like, “I hope Marcy pees on it.” Oh OK, as if you’re not going to take your clothes off and roll around on this when no one’s home, Henry. That’s not something you would do AT ALL.

Chooch hijacked Henry’s phone last night when he stupidly went to bed early, and hoo boy did we have some fun. Mostly we just terrorized people on Instagram. Chooch went to his favorite YouTuber’s Instagram page and we left him all kinds of love notes from Henry (jrobber1 if you feel some sick need to follow him on there). Then, after posting several selfies, Chooch started following horrible people on Henry’s behalf.

This morning, I was talking to Henry on my walk to the trolley and he blurted out, “You two are assholes.” I tried to play dumb, which is usually is pretty easy for me, because I’m naturally dumb, but he barked, “Oh don’t play dumb. I know what you guys did. I knew as soon as I opened Instagram this morning and Kim Kardashian’s boobs were everywhere.” Also, his alarm didn’t go off, so we’re getting blamed for that now, too.

I just started cracking up over this while I was getting stuff off the printer, because not only am I prone to laughing alone at  my desk, but also while traveling to other parts of the floor. And it’s probably not even really that funny, but you should know that lately I have been fluctuating between laughing until I have to puke, to crying until I have to puke. OK, that’s not just “lately.” That’s “always.”

Speaking of hyper-psychotic laughter, we’re all moving our shit to our new spaces today and I was like, “Hmm, why the hell do I have a sewing kit in this box?” And then I remembered someone gave it to me when I was making my Glenn garland for my office Christmas tree a few years ago. O MEMRIEZ.

I was just finishing up this Dahmer painting to join the others in the set* when Chooch strode over and said, “I want that. Can I have it? PLEASE LET ME KEEP IT!”

“What, why? It’s—”

“Jeffrey Dahmer, I know! And I want it,” he cried. So, I guess Dahmer is going on Chooch’s wall and I’ll just make another.

*Fish and Manson so far—I’m trying to paint as many as I can so I can incorporate them into new cards for my serial killer card shop. I need a new “everyday card” line.)

****

In other news, one of my co-workers, Marlene, was moving into her new desk yesterday and suddenly screamed. Her scream was then followed by an accusatory, “ERIN!!!” I slowly got up from my desk and said, “Yeah, I think I know what this is about….” Apparently, there was a  leftover bloody finger in one of the drawers from last Halloween’s scavenger hunt. So Marlene suggested that we put it in Debby’s drawer. Today, it was back in Marlene’s drawer and she immediately accused me! I was like, “I SWEAR I DIDN’T DO IT!” so the next obvious suspect in line is always Glenn, who wasn’t here yet. Marlene marched over to his desk and put it in his jar of peanuts.

“Great, he’s not going to think that I did that AT ALL,” I said. And of course, I got blamed for it. I told Marlene and she was like, “I hate to break it to you, Erin, but everyone ALWAYS thinks it’s you!”

“BUT LOOK AT THIS FACE!” I cried, pulling it into the most angelic visage of innocence I could muster.

“THAT is why we always think it’s you!” Marlene laughed.

And then I went into Wendy’s office and she was crying because her sister sent her some sad song and then I started crying because I saw Wendy crying and tears are contagious.

Speaking of crying! I’m going to see Mike+the Mechanics tonight and I said to Glenn, “When they play Silent Running tonight, and YOU KNOW THAT THEY WILL PLAY SILENT RUNNING TONIGHT, I’m going to cry so hard.”

“Good to know,” he mumbled. He’s just mad because he had to take my late shift tonight. SO THAT I CAN CRY AT THE MIKE+THE MECHANICS SHOW!

Friends, I am more Sybil than usual. I think I need some sort of Mexican home remedy.

That may or may not be “Friday” in Icelandic. You never know if the things you learn in Internet College (i.e. Google) are True Story or not. But I thought that hey, maybe putting a weird-looking word in the title would entice people to click. LINGUISTIC CLICK BAIT. 

Anyway, all that memory lane-tripping over the last week has left me exhausted. Let’s unwind with some good old-fashioned bullet points and iPhone pictures, because that’s real life, you guys.

• The weather was disgusting on Sunday. Look, I’ve done pretty well with not bitching and moaning about winter this year, but when it’s March and still looking like a hobo’s dirty Slurpee outside, I AM GOING TO SAY SOMETHING ABOUT IT. I don’t think the sun came out once all day, and we were treated with some sickening, wet snowfall. Or, as those in the meterological know say: “wintry mix.” So, basically perfect weather to meet Chris and Monica at Sonic to try the new chocolate jalapeno milkshake. If you’ve ever been to Sonic, you know there’s no “inside” to it. You park and your food is brought out to your car. Not very conducive to meeting friends and hanging out on a wintry mix-y day. But, that’s what we did. Henry was like, “You fools can enjoy yourselves standing in the parking lot like rejects; I’m just going to sit in the car and scroll through Facebook even though I only have approx. 40 friends so probably my feed hasn’t changed.”
  • My jalapeno was bigger than Chris’s jalapeno. Monica took a sip of Chris’s shake and cried out, “I got a hot piece!” which actually made Henry laugh audibly from inside the car. Who knew Henry sometimes pays attention to what THE GIRLS are talking about?!

• During our milkshake suck-fest, all of us realized that we hadn’t eaten lunch yet, so we finished our milkshake appetizers and went down the street to Kings, where Henry actually decided to sit at the same table as us, and Chris agreed to let the ghost of Henry’s grandma use her as a host in order to teach Chooch how to knit. So, just your normal lunch convo, really. Then Monica* was like, “Chooch, follow your dad into the bathroom and take a picture of him for all of us to see” so Chooch did it and we all died. Always so much fun hanging out with those two!
  • *True or False?

• In order to distract myself on Mournday, Janna and I went to the Hollywood Theater to see What We Do In the Shadows, which was a really smart move because I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard in a movie theater and I REALLY NEEDED THAT. Janna brought a 4-pack of mini-wine with her so that made it even better. And we managed to not slip on ice and break ourselves because WINTER UGH DIE on the way there and back.
  • I highly recommend seeing this movie, which should mean a lot because I rarely tell you guys to watch things other than music videos. If you like vampires, mockumentaries, The Real World, and the New Zealand film industry, then you will probably like this movie. If I didn’t personally find movie reviews to be so boring, I would tell you more about it but instead I trust that you will just click the link up there. I was still laughing about it the next day at work and I TRIED to tell Glenn about it because I’m a very sharing person, but he was just like, “Oh OK.” Maybe if it was a silent film about boring Glenn-like people doing boring Glenn-like things, like talking about gas fireplaces and looking at clothes dryer manuals, his interest would have been piqued.

• Still can’t believe Parks and Recreation is over. #RIPHarris
• No one has given me their hometown “travel” pieces yet so I’m going to make up my own.
• I always have pretty fucked up dreams (and nightmares—I LOVE HAVING NIGHTMARES) but lately they have almost all involved work people. I think on some subconscious tier, I must be more stressed out than I actually feel about all of the changes happening at work. I mean, some of them are really good changes, but still—it’s a change and changes and me just don’t agree. Even David Bowie’s “Changes” makes me feel stressed out on some level EVEN THOUGH I LOVE THAT SONG.
  • In one of my dreams, Sue (the director of the department) and I killed a man with our bare hands in Wendy’s backyard. Sue said good morning to me the next day and I had immediate flash backs and then proceeded to not make eye contact with her for the rest of the day. SUCH INTIMACY. Later in the dream, I had the guy’s head and it turned out he was still alive and he bit my arm really hard so I ripped his jaw off and if I stop typing and let the room grow quiet, I can still hear all of the popping and cracking of cartilage and bone.
  • In another dream, it turned out that my co-worker Cheryl and her husband were actually not married for all these years, so they decided to get married for real and I went to the wedding, which was in a huge cathedral that also had parts of Cheryl’s house in it. I was sitting at the top of a wide, red-carpeted staircase with another co-worker who works remotely from West Virginia and who I have little to no contact with; her knee hurt her so she asked me to slide down the steps with her, so I did, and I went too fast and slid across the floor in my dress and landed in a heap at the feet of a bunch of wedding attendees, so that was awkward. Then Amber-With-Child was there, minus the -With-Child, and she made me take a tour of the dessert tables with her, which literally meant walking through a spiraling corridor full of CAKES AND COOKIES AND CHOCOLATES but every time I would try to take something, she would tug me along. Finally, I snagged something and it turned out to be chocolate-covered paper. Then some girl appeared and kept quoting my blog at me and I was like, “OK that’s great” but she kept saying, “I MEAN AMIRITE?” and I was like “NO I DON’T RECOGNIZE THIS!” And then I was in Cheryl’s kitchen but everything was built for giants and I kept trying to climb up onto a stool but I couldn’t make it. When I told Cheryl the next day In real life, she asked, “But why was my kitchen built for giants?” I looked at her like she was idiotic and said, “Because you and your husband were giants!” God. Try to follow along, Cheryl. She’s the worst, amirite?
    • Meanwhile Henry had a dream that some girl fell down a well and Bradley Scott Walden from Emarosa went down to save her. I was like, “PLZ TELL ME I WAS THE GIRL!?!?”
• The other day, I brought the latest issue of Alternative Press to work and made Glenn look at posters of Pierce the Veil with me. He made some insensitive comment about how they look like hooligans and/or misfits and I just sighed and said, “I like them because they’re Mexican.” Glenn said, “Oh, are they really?” and his tone suggested that maybe that would sway his opinion. “Well….they’re from San Diego” I said with a shrug.
• Rosetta Stone’s “Adrenaline” just came on Spotify and I instinctively reached up to touch my spiked choker of yesteryear. #GothMemories #BlackBible
• Two weekends ago, we were having Weather and Henry was outside shoveling. Hot Naybor Chris asked Henry if we needed any bread, and Henry said we needed hamburger buns, so Chris came back with like 4 grocery bags full of various breads, even a container of croissants and a King Cake. Maybe that love isn’t unrequited after all!
• I decided something pretty major last week: The best Full House episode is the one where they lose Michelle at Disneyworld and the worst Full House episode is the one where they find Michelle at Disneyworld. Runners-up for best are probably the one where Joey is teaching Michelle to ride a bike and she crashes into a bush, followed closely by the one where she runs away and then Joey, Jessie and Danny show up at her friend’s house with all her shit and tell her to have a nice life. But then it ended up being reverse-psychology and she came back home. :(
• “Move your damn tombstone,” Glenn said to me at work, which is pretty normal.
• I fell down the 90s R&B rabbit hole last night (which is a ridiculous sentiment because I live in that rabbit hole) and while poor Henry was trying desperately to sneak away to bed, I was taking him on a tour of videos from the Jason’s Lyric soundtrack.  JASON’S LYRIC WAS MY EVERYTHING IN HIGH SCHOOL YOU GUYS. I saw it at least three times in the theater and that is what taught me what TRU LUV is all about: finding a guy whose brother is embroiled in THUGLYFE and then SAVING HIM (but not the gang member brother–that guy can eat it). This movie came out when I was dating my first real love, Justin Kail and basically he was Jason and I was his Lyric, which is pretty obvious, but then he broke up with me and I would listen to that soundtrack while crying hot, psycho tears like a true Girl, Interrupted. Meanwhile, the letters F, M and L were undulating in Henry’s pupils as I selected the first video: Sovory’s “Love Is Still Enough” which was fan-made and featured pictures and illustrations of all types of black couples, and I would turn every so often and lip-synch into Henry’s face, which he loves. It’s his favorite thing about me, maybe second only to when I eat popcorn and wipe my buttery fingers on the lenses of his glasses.  But then I put on the holy grail of the Jason’s Lyric soundtrack: YOU WILL KNOW, BY BLACK MEN UNITED!! This was like a veritable wet dream for a yo-girl like me in 1994, like my version of porn; all of these hot R&B singers in their prime, hoo-boy. (Of course, back then, my favorite was El DeBarge.) Anyway, right as the video started playing, I said wistfully to Henry, “Man, back then, I could name after last motherfucker on this song. I bet I don’t even know half of them now” right before I began crying out name after name in a breathless frenzy, like I was being timed. like there was a big prize at the end, like I’M A KNOW-IT-ALL. Henry looked more disgusted than impressed, which hurt.

• Then we migrated up to bed, where I continued YouTubing 90s R&B hits on my phone, like Usher’s first big single “Can U Get Wit It.” “I knew about Usher before other white people,” I explained to Henry, because sometimes my megalomania cannot be contained. This inspired a tangent about MTV Veejay Ananda Lewis and how I hated her because she started out on BET’s Teen Summit, and BET was obviously playing Usher from the beginning, you know? Because that’s the shit that BET did. So then Ananda got all big-time and left BET for MTV, where, a few years later, she introduced a video from Usher’s second album and referred to him as a brand new artist WHEN SHE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN THAT WAS BULLSHIT. While I was spitting about this, I had pulled up her Wiki page and started relaying to Henry some facts about her sorry ass. “I can’t believe it doesn’t say anything about her lying on MTV about Usher,” I murmured. “Wow. Maybe you should add that fact yourself,” Henry suggested in the bored voice that I would probably be using if I was watching a silent film about boring Glenn-like people, doing boring Glenn-like things, like talking about gas fireplaces and looking at clothes dryer manuals.
  • A few minutes later, I blurted out, “I can’t believe I didn’t end up as a teen mom.” Henry looked at me all confused and asked why I would say something like that. “BECAUSE OF ALL THE SEX JAMZ I LISTENED TO BACK THEN!” God, Henry. Go collect some clues with Cheryl.

OK Blog/Only Friend. I’m out.

Today’s All About Barb post is going to be an extravaganza of bullet points, links, and photos. Because there is just so much to remember!

Things I’ve Learned About Barb

• Hates most collars, scarves, and other such fashionable garrotes
• Confuses giraffes and zebras
• Pumpkin Spice Lattes make her cry, “Holla!”
• Proud Functional Fixedness sufferer
• Hates Bill Paxton with the blinding fury of 87 million suns
• Is confused by non-American cuisine and doesn’t even know what CILANTRO is, GOD BARB
• The only thing she likes about the Philadelphia Flyers is the broad who used to sing God Bless America at their games a long time ago
• She “doesn’t do” gum
• She has feelings for Pascal Dupuis (he’s a PITTSBURGH PENGUIN if you didn’t know)

Favorite Barb Memories

• When she was super into watching a live feed of this local eagle’s nest. There were three eggs and the whole city was on “egg watch” basically, but Barb was like a maniac over it, like she’s related to them, like she was waiting for her eagle grandchildren to be born. God, get over it, Barb. Anyway, she was all stressed out because it was predicted that the day that the eggs would start hatching was when she was going to be en route to Toronto to visit her brother. “I just know an egg is going to hatch when I’m not around to watch,” she cried. AND SURE ENOUGH, AN EGG HATCHED ON THAT DAY! I saw it on Facebook and was filled with glee that Barb missed it. I got to rub it in her face when she came back to work and it was DELICIOUS. (I mean, the “in-your-face”-isms, not the eagle egg.)
• The time she admitted to me that she almost prevented me from getting hired here, after telling our boss, “Oh, I don’t know. She has a little kid and will probably be calling off all the time.” You know how many times I’ve called off since getting hired in April 2010? TWO TIMES. IN YOUR FACE, BARB!
• When the first thing she did after getting a smartphone was download a fart app.

• When Barb yelled at Lee (to her defense, he made an ill-timed, insensitive joke about the Paper Clip Situation at work, which I’m not sure I’ve ever explained on this blog, but it’s really stupid and petty and has Barb and I completely up in arms as it’s mostly directed toward us). Because of this, Lee started calling her Darth Rile and asked me to Photoshop a Darth Riley. Barb of course thought this was great and was trying to email it to her brother, but accidentally sent it to one of the Firm partners in Spokane, who is probably in his 80s and his picture tells us that he probably hasn’t laughed since 1959, presumably while watching Leave It To Beaver. Her face was so red, and so was mine — FROM ALL THE HYSTERICAL LAUGHTER HEATING IT UP. I had to actually get up and run away from my desk because I was losing it so bad. She thought she may have been able to recall the email, but I REALLY REALLY REALLY hope he saw it. I actually hurt my back from laughing!
• Last August, when we let Barb out of our sight for like 3 minutes at Kaitlin’s wedding only to have her rush back over to us with her arm hooked around a man. crying, “LOOK WHO I FOUND! JOE MACHI! FROM LAST COMIC STANDING! ON NBC!!!!” Then she practically chucked her phone at me and made me take her picture with him. It all happened so fast, you guys.

• All the times Barb would fuck up the daily Roll Call emails that the whole department counted on her to send. Sometimes she would have the date wrong, or someone would forget to add their name to the calendar if they weren’t going to be in, and then Barb would look like an asshole. My favorite was the time she tried THREE TIMES to send the correct Roll Call and fucked up each one and then everyone had a filed day sending her corrections, so finally she sent this bitter email to the department: “My apologies for the mix up…..I shall strive to do better in the future.  Thank you all for the heads up on my errors.” And, if you know Barb, you can imagine that she probably broke her keyboard after pounding out that reply. I got so much glee out of ridiculing her on her Roll Call inadequacies and even now, imagining her laying awake at night, feeling the pressure to send a flawless Roll Call email, is making me crack up so bad at my desk.
• When Barb started sending my kid anonymous mail.
• The time Carey offered Barb a box of baked goods, to which Barb responded with, “For future reference, always offer stuff to Erin first.” UGH SHE KNOWS ME SO WELL :(
• When Barb was a part of my Halloween Freak Show desk in 2012!

• The time Barb unwittingly kick-started my apple obsession.
• When Barb held my hand during my first Jury Duty summons.
• This could have been any day, really:

OK, I know I’m forgetting so much and GLENN has done fuck-all to help me with this. So, if you’re a Law Firm person and have a Barb memory to contribute, let me know and I’ll add it here under a special “OTHER PEOPLES MEMORIES” section.

:(

Thank the fucking Good Sweet Brown that it is Friday. This week was a….weird one. Let’s bullet it out.

• I mentioned in passing earlier this week that BARB is leaving the Law Firm. Words cannot express the emotional paralysis I’m experiencing because of this. WHO WILL TAKE CARE OF ME?!?! I suggested that she train Glenn and we all had a good laugh. Who will post passive-aggressive signs in the kitchen when someone leaves their dirty shit in the sink for more than 5 minutes, or send snippy emails to all the right people when our printer gives up the ghost for the 87th time this week or there is an alarming stench emanating from the restroom!? BAAR-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA-ARRRRRB, DON’T GO!!!!
  • SPEAKING OF, we were out of plastic spoons in the kitchen for a few days and I kept having to go to a different floor to get some. Then I would come back to my desk and fill Glenn in on my latest quest, because he lives for these updates. When I came to work the other day, this was sitting on my desk, because Glenn apparently IS trying to be New Barb! I t old Amber-with-Child that this means Glenn and I are basically BFFs now. A few minutes later, she asked me where he was and I was like, “I don’t know. We’re not THAT good of friends.”
    • But back to the spoons: to use them or nah? THEY MIGHT BE LACED.

• Several of my friends posted that JNCO is coming back! I was like OMG memories because I used to wear the shit out of JNCO, Stussy, Karl Kani (that was my SHIT), and Cross Colours. I started Googling the other brands and was so stoked to see that they’re all still around, but the Karl Kani hoodies especially made me catch my breath. I kept shoving my phone in Henry’s face so he could really marvel over the Kani signature name plate on the shirts. Henry was like, “Nope. Still don’t remember.”  HE WAS THE GODFATHER OF URBAN FASHION, for Tupac’s sake! I was really going hard down memory lane at this point and asked Henry if he remembered the clothing store Merry Go Round. He said yes, probably just to placate me, and I went on to tell him that’s where I bought all of my yo-girl threads. “Cross Colours in particular had an entire girls’ line of clothes, but I always wanted the boy stuff. Because I was a THUG,Henry.” Henry sighed and murmured, “Yeah. I keep forgetting.”
  • Ugh, why didn’t I keep all those old clothes?! Now I feel sick over this.
• 

• OMG THE MOST AMAZING THING EVER HAPPENED. The other day, Barb was all, “Yo, how far into Breaking Bad are you?” and I was all, “Blahblah blah Jane and Jesse” and Barb was all, “DID YOU NOTICE WHO JANE’S DAD IS!?” And I was like, “What no who?!” and she was like, “He was on some soap opera years ago, I can’t remember if it was Another World or Days of Our Lives, and for some reason all I can remember is that he had a girlfriend named Calliope—-” I cut her off to cry, “EUGENE!?!?!?!? AND HE WAS AN INVENTOR! AND WHEN HE AND CALLIOPE GOT MARRIED HER DRESS LIT UP!!!”  and then I had to run back to my desk and YouTube it before my head exploded because if there is one thing I fucking go bananas over, it is 1980s-era Days of Our Lives, people. So then that night, I was so excited to tell Henry, but apparently my lead-in was too over-the-top because he thought it was going to be something more amazing, and I’m like MORE amazing? What more could you want? Eugene fucking Bradford is on Breaking Bad!
  • The next day, I told Barb that I watched another episode of Breaking Bad the night before and was so excited to see that it really is him, and I even cried out JOHN DELANCIE! when his name popped up in the opening credits. Then we were talking about Calliope and I mentioned that Arlene Sorkin was like, my style icon as a kid and Barb was like, “Oh I didn’t know that was her name in real life.” I told her that of course I knew her name, because I kept a Days of Our Lives scrapbook when I was in elementary school. Don’t be jealous.
    • Eugene was last seen in Salem in 1989, after which he disappeared in his time machine.
• Yesterday, Glenn was telling campfire tales about the OLDEN DAYS when it was unheard of for schools to have 2-hour delays due to weather. “Except for that one time in the 70s when the rivers froze and the barges couldn’t get through. Schools were closed that day.” Then he and Patrick launched into some sordid conversation about gas fireplaces and I was like, “Where am I? Is this Hell?”
  • Also, Glenn lectured meonnot watering my stupid spider plant often enough. “Look at it, it’s all desiccated,” he monotoned. “MAYBE THAT’S HOW I LIKE MY THINGS!” I cried defensively. Glenn must have just learned the word “desiccate” because he seemed excited to use it. Why couldn’t he have been this active when I was live-blogging our terrible late shift?
    • Barb would never lecture me. Whenever she tries to teach me to do something new (like, use an apple corer or find my way around town), she always swaddles her words in baby’s breath and whatever material the gloves that handle the Stanley Cup are made from, and punctuates it with a reminder that I am a special, special star.
• OK, girl talk: Pretty much have spent all week obsessing over Lynn Gunn’s (singer of PVRIS) relationship with Love, Robot vocalist Alexa San Roman. And thank god, too, because I am so over Whitney and Sada. All they do on Instagram is post club flyers and pictures of their post-workout smoothies!!  So I’ve officially hopped on the fast train to Lynn & Alexa Town. Of course, this obsession is salt/wound, but I don’t care. Last night, I was babbling on to Henry about something that I read about them. “I saw it on the Lynn & Alexatumblr,” I excitedly explained. Henry responded with a stretch of intensely disappointed frowns. “WHAT HENRY?! HASHTAG RELATIONSHIP GOALS, OK?!” Seriously. I wish I could go back to my early 20s and bag a hot lesbian singer in a beanie and then hold hands at Warped Tour. I clearly chose the wrong path. #LESBICORE
  • Thank god Henry is so goddamn patient with me.
• Today I’m wearing a shirt that I forgot I  bought in the junior department of JCPenney’s and apparently it’s a “great color on me.” Sometimes coming to work is a real feel-good experience. And while I really appreciate the compliment, I’mma pretend it was really coming from my figmented girlfriend who sings in a make-believe post-hardcore band. 

Me in my nice-colored shirt.

• The security guard just tromped past my desk with a new security guard who looks like a 1980s serial killer….or Henry in the 90s. I feel considerably less safe.
• All I want to do this weekend is write stories.

HAVE A GOOD WEEKEND, INTERNET BEINGS!

It’s Wednesday, and it all at once feels like “HOW DID WE GET HERE SO SOON?!” and also “WHEN WILL THIS WEEK END?!” Not doing very well as far as “sentence structure” and “cognizant thoughts” go, so let’s bullet point the shit out of today, shall we?

• I’m still on my P.Eugene kick. Last night, I did a Gospel Celebration workout that involved some light salsa moves and I was doing fine until Paul cried, “NOW GRAB YOUR PARTNER!” and I didn’t HAVE a partner because ASSHOLE HENRY wouldn’t get the FUCK off the couch and be a fucking PARTNER for once in his life, so I had to goddamn shadow dance and I was so pissed. Then there was a step that required me to “pivot” and that is how I learned that I’m not capable of pivoting.
  • This morning, I told Glenn that I salsa’d with Paul last night and for a split second, he looked concerned. “WHERE?!” he asked, like he thought I had tracked down Paul and whipped him until he finally did a one-on-one workout with me.”In my living room,” I answered and then he looked relieved. LIKE PAUL COULDN’T HAVE BEEN IN MY LIVING ROOM I GUESS?
  • Obviously.
• Also last night, I made Henry watch the premier of Eye Candy on MTV and he is so hooked, you guys. I CAN’T BELIEVE BEN DIED ALREADY IN THE FIRST EPISODE! Oh shit, I spoiled it.
• Speaking of MTV shows, here is a picture of Henry watching The Challenge last week. It always starts out like, “I DON’T WANT TO WATCH, I HATE THESE SHOWS” and then a few minutes in, he’s making casual observations, like, “I wonder where Evan has been?” and “HOW DOES JORDAN DO THAT WHEN HE HAS A DEFORMED HAND!?” But seriously, this season of the Challenge is painful for my heart. Seeing Diem and Knight on TV was really upsetting, knowing that soon after this season was filmed, they died. Diem says at one point that she wants to win because she needs the money for a surrogate, since her ovarian cancer was preventing her from having children. OW MY HEART.

• I was really excited to do nothing over the weekend. Nothing as in: no painting, etc. Kristy and Janna came over Saturday night and it was RELAXING! We laughed a lot and made Henry bring us drinks and then the house almost burnt down because I lit a super ambitious candle in the bathroom and thank god Henry bought new smoke detectors right before Thanksgiving after 15 years of living in a house without them (when I lived alone I thought they were stupid because they were always beeping so I ripped them off the ceiling) because there was enough smoke to set one of those sumbitches off! Henry and I looked at each and then I immediately shouted, “CANDLE! I LIT A CANDLE IN THE BATHROOM!” One of the soap holders on the sink was completely blackened but everything else seemed OK. It was exciting! Come hang out at my house, where it’s always loud and the possibility of getting charred is a real thing.
• Apparently, we’re doing a Biggest Loser thing in our department and it starts tomorrow. At first I was like, “No” because I don’t want to get weighed in front of anyone (#foreverfat) but then I actually finished reading an email for once in my life and realized that we can keep our weight to ourselves and just use percentages.
  • Whatever that means.
    • There were instructions but I didn’t click the link, so I guess technically I didn’t really read the whole email.
  • I feel bad for the other competitors. Now that I’ve got Paul to the Eug in my life, they don’t stand a chance. Jesus is going to carry me over that finish line. (And probably Henry, too, because I’m sure I’m going to injure myself on the path to the victory.)

• I don’t stay with Chooch anymore for his piano lesson (I think I told you this already, Blog) because I apparently was too much of a distraction, so now Henry and I get to run around town for a full hour and do whatever the fuck we want! Except for basically anything I suggest, because Henry is an asshole. But it was OK for us to swing by East End Brewery last Saturday, because it was HIS idea. God forbid a growler sit empty in our house. He tried to sweeten the pot  by reminding me that Commonplace Coffee shares a space with East End Brewery and now that I’m officially Keurig-free, I’m always in need of more hipster coffee to make Henry’s eyes roll. First though, we went to the East End side of the building and while Henry slurped various beer samples into his mustachioed lips, I must have looked pretty bored because one of the guys behind the counter slid a sample of some dark brown, probably-disgusting beer-stuff over to me. “Here, you need this” he said with confidence, and then walked away. At first, I was like, “Oh really? He’s that sure I’m going to love this that he doesn’t even need to watch?” Ugh, beer experts are their own breed. I took a tentative dip with my tongue and when it didn’t melt off, I went off for a second slightly larger sip. “Oh my god,” I side-whispered to Henry, who was busy pretending like he definitely detected the hidden note of Ethiopian warrior sweat in whatever dumb beer he was sampling. “I like this!” I said with bewilderment. “No you don’t,” Henry argued, turning back to his lame sample and pretending like he has some refined palate and didn’t just eat a package of Slim Jims and Moonpies in the car that morning. But I did, and I told the beer guys this, explaining that I HATE BEER USUALLY. The one guy said he was shocked that I liked it then, but apparently it gestated in some wine cask somewhere, so I guess that did the trick for me. Henry, seeing that I had charmed the guys and wanting to turn the attention back on himself, told them that he would take a mini growler of the beer that I liked, which is appropriately named SKETCHY.
  • I felt really guilty about this, though. Like, almost as guilty as the time I mistakenly made fun of Paul Eugene (before I realized that he is actually awesome and I would follow him into the desert, if you know what I’m saying, and if you do please explain it to me because I just lost myself). You see, this one time…years and years ago (it was 2007, so whatever year-count that would be) Janna, Kara, and I went to a vegetarian dinner at the Bigelow Grill, and there was also a beer-pairing presented by the owner of the East End Brewery himself, Scott. Back then, I had even less tolerance for beer as I do now. I didn’t even like wheat beers or shandies then (YES I KNOW THAT’S NOT REAL BEER), so naturally, when it was time for me to write about the experience, I pulled out all of the meanest, nastiest analogies I could muster. Because you know what jerks do when we don’t understand something. We mock it.  Scott ended up finding my blog post and rather than sue me for defamation, he actually said my XXX-rated review amused him and asked if he could post the link in his newsletter. (God, why couldn’t the Catholic school moms have reacted the same?) So I contacted him through the brewery’s website and ate crow. All these years later! He replied and asked if he could put my apology on the website and I’m like, sure why not?! I can think of worse ways to make an ass of myself.
    • The moral of this story is that sometimes it’s OK to gives things another chance and then OMG admit that you were wrong. Scott and I are basically BBFs now.
      • He doesn’t know yet, but he’ll find out when he gets the other half of the best friend pendant in the mail.
  • Speaking of beer and Kristy, when she came over on Saturday, she brought one of those Rogue beers that I always wish I liked because the bottles are so wonderful (I actually bought one years ago at Jungle Jim’s in Cincinnati because the guy on the front looked like Henry). This one was supposed to taste like some kind of lemon donut, but I couldn’t stop feeling like I was swishing a mouthful of Lysol. Two hours later, Henry was like, “JUST GIVE ME THAT GLASS, I KNOW YOU’RE NOT GOING TO FINISH IT” and I was like, “YES I AM BECAUSE I THINK I LIKE IT NOW.” Sometimes it just takes me a long time to like something, OK? Look, it took me 10 years to like Henry.
• I found this tracklist for a mixtape I made in….1999 or 2000? I haven’t listened to 90% of those songs probably since then. (Totally unapologetic about that Fuel song. That was my JAM. I’m going to put it on right now and I guarantee that I will get choked up. It reminds me of bartending school!)
  • A shocking amount of things remind me of bartending school, which is odd considering it was literally only a 2 week course.
  • Yep. I’m choked up. AND IF I CAN’T FIND MY WAY BACK TO ME…

• Chooch has been such a little fucking brat all week and then it dawned on me last night that it’s because he needs a haircut. When his hair gets all shaggy-like, he turns into a FUCKING MONSTER OMG HELP ME (he and Henry are currently arguing as I type this). So tomorrow he’s going to get his hair cut and I’m super stoked about this. TIME TO GOOGLE PICTURES OF DAVID BECKHAM.
  • That’s my go-to hair model for Chooch’s head.
• In the same tin I found that mixtape tracklist, I also found these old Penguins tickets and it made me feel so warm and fuzzy. My family had season tickets back in the day but then my mom stupidly got rid of them about 10 years ago. BECAUSE SHE HATES ME.
  • There were also a shitload of concert tickets in there, and one was from a White Stripes show we went to in 2002 at Metropol, which I’ll never forget because I was like, “WE HAVE TO GO SEE THIS BAND THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO BE SO GREAT.” (Clearly this was before they became MTV darlings.) I was bored out of my mind. They didn’t impress me then, and they don’t impress me now.
  • Speaking of the Penguins and Fuel, I can’t listen to “Hemorrhage” without thinking of them losing in the Stanley Cup finals of 2008. We usually keep the X (Pittsburgh’s alternative station and the official station for the Pens broadcast) on in our room during hockey season, and I remember waking up the day after they lost the Cup and “Hemorrhage” was on. I started crying so hard, like I had just broken up with a guy. (Or, you know, Henry.) Jesus, I was WRECKED!
    • You would think I’m a huge Fuel fan after all  this but I swear I’m not. I saw them live once ever, at one of the X Fests, and the singer (Brett) was so awful and obnoxious. Once was enough for this broad.

• WHAT AM I TO DO WITH, DO WITH, ME?! LET THE SUN FALL DOWN!!!!
• I want to have some kind of monthly thing at my house, like a book club but not a book club because I don’t have the downtime to read one book a month (this makes me sad, too). Maybe like…a QUILTING BEE? I don’t know. Local friends, wanna come hang out at my house once a month under the pretense of “doing a thing”? Even if we just gossip about Henry. That could be OK fun. No OMG wait I’m so dumb, the answer was right in front of me—LET’S HAVE A PAUL EUGENE WORKOUT NIGHT!!
• Hey look, Henry actually framed some of my posters and hung them! But they’re slightly uneven and he still hasn’t fixed that yet.

Well guys, the Law Firm Biggest Loser challenge starts tomorrow, and PE can’t work my ass out if I’m sitting on it. SO SAY GOODBYE.

Today is the last day of 2014 (newsflash for those calendar-ignorant motherfuckers out there) and I was just struck with an extra dose of blogging panic because I need to purge all this December bullshit before it’s too late and I get shot in the neck with a poisoned dart and then dragged to whatever the blogging version of Guantanamo Bay is….Dooce’s basement? I shudder to think.

• First, let’s talk about Secret Santa! I had A-ron this year and I was super-stoked about it and went completely overboard because Secret Santa-shopping is fun as fuck. I mostly got him toys and candy and novelty socks, but the best part was in the wrapping, which I can’t post here because it all involved pictures of various people around the law firm and I’m trying to not be a reckless blogger, remember? Meanwhile, my Secret Santa was KILLING IT. I was convinced that it was Nate, because every day, I was getting very Erin-specific notes and Kit Kats, and not too long ago, Nate asked me what my favorite candy was. AND I SAID KIT KATS. Plus, I figured it had to be someone that I talk to everyday and/or am Facebook friends with, because the details were on point.

The TMNT figures made me really lean toward Nate, but then toward the end, Barb was like, “FYI it’s not Nate” because she had to deliver something on behalf of Nate and it was not to my desk. But then I started thinking, about how my gift wasn’t there that day when I got in, but then it showed up later, AFTER MEAN AMBER HAD ARRIVED FOR LATE SHIFT. How could I have been so blind!? All of my notes were specific to things that she is forced to talk to me about EVERY DAY. (Except the Pens—that’s a mutual topic for us.) So yes, it was definitely Mean Amber (or Amber Claus) and she told me that Nate only asked me what my favorite candy was because she told him to. WELL-PLAYED. God, Secret Santa is so fun!

• In other Christmas news (j/k, this whole post is Christmas nonsense), Chooch joined chorus this year and has consistently failed to bring home pertinent information that involved parents might need to have. Such as: when recitals are and what he needs to wear for said recitals and what time he needs to be at the school before these supposed recitals. A few weeks ago, I got a text from Henry at 5:20 (10 minutes before I was done with work) to tell me that our son had just informed him that he had to be back at school by 6:00 in order to get ready for the 6:30 recital. That jerk is so goddamn lucky that my job is in such close proximity to our house and his school. So yes, we got him there in time and got to watch him sing a medley of Christmas carols. When that was done, the music teacher took the stage to announce that while the band was setting up, several students were going to come out and play a piece on the piano. I was like, “Oh great, more unbridled talent. How will we stand it” when suddenly, the first kid to come back out on stage was my own goddamn son. My stomach flip-flopped, my entire body spontaneously clenched. This was a big surprise to me. Chooch got behind the piano and knocked out a few bars of “Deck the Halls” and, while not without flaws, it wasn’t too bad for a kid who barely practices and has a laid-back punk keyboardist as his teacher. I mean, I knew that he had been working on this song but I thought it was something that he was playing for the kids in music class or something, not in front of all of these parents. And then when he finished, he promptly took a bow. The people behind us were fucking loving it and kept shouting, “IS THAT YOUR BOY? IS HE YOURS?” like we just witnessed a young Amadeus up there and not an 8-year-old rushing through Deck the Halls from spotty memory. But goddammit, I was proud of that kid. Especially afterward when he joined us in the crowd and kicked back in a chair like his solo was no big deal. I asked him if he was nervous and he looked at me like I was absurd. “No. Why would I be?” We are so not alike in that regard.
•   
  • Also in CHORUS NEWS, I was just getting on the trolley two Mondays ago when Henry texted me and said that Chooch had called him from school, that he had his chorus field trip that day and was supposed to wear a white button-down shirt since they were going to be performing at the courthouse downtown, and that he HAD a white shirt on, but MOMMY made him take it off. Fucking little liar. You know what he was wearing that day, because he insisted on dressing himself? An over-sized CAT T-SHIRT. Again, this kid is fucking lucky that I work downtown and was able, with Glenn’s permission of all people, to run down the street to Burlington and buy a stupid white shirt for my lying sack of a kid, and then later in the morning, I had to run up to the courthouse which I actually know where that it is thanks to JURY DUTY 2011 when my co-workers did everything short of aiming beacons into the air to make sure I knew where I was going. I found the spot where all of the other school buses were dropping off the band kids, etc., so I stood there waiting for Chooch’s school, which of course passed right by, with Chooch, wearing a baggy cat t-shirt and a shit-eating grin, waving to me from the window. So I had to follow the bus around the entire courthouse because the music teacher apparently is as woefully unprepared as me, until finally the bus pulled over and the teacher jumped off and ran inside the courthouse, I guess to check in. All of Chooch’s dorky friends were waving and pointing to me from the bus, and I’m like, “I gotta get back to work, put your damn window down” and Chooch is like, “What? Why?” and I’m really getting irritated at this point, at him, at the situation, at all these dumb kids laughing and waving at me. It took FOUR KIDS to help him get his dumb window down, at which point, I balled up the Burlington bag, chucked it through the window and growled, “BREAK A LEG!” I found out later that he was pissed that I didn’t stay to watch his performance, are you fucking kidding me? Maybe if I hadn’t wasted my entire lunch break plus some SHOPPING IN A SCARY STORE and practically casing the courthouse like a creep, I could have stayed.
  • Between all of this, the Open House fuckarow, and god only knows what else we’ve unknowingly missed, his school probably thinks he has alcoholics for parents.
• I didn’t think Henry and I were exchanging gifts this year since we did the whole Philly weekend thing two weeks ago, but then he told me he had something for me so of course I begged him on Christmas Eve to let me open it. I could tell right away that it was a CD and you guys know that I love music so much but I still started to feel disappointed because CDs are every day purchases, you know? #spoiledbrat But then I opened it and realized that it was a Mike + the Mechanics CD with tickets to the show stuffed inside! YOU GUYS. This was one of the few times I didn’t have to feign appreciation! I was actually going to go to this show alone because Henry seemed really off-put by the ticket prices (when you’re accustomed to $10-$20 small band shows….), but then he bought two tickets for the same seats we had for the Goblin show and I am so incredibly stoked! My Pappap loved this band. I don’t even care that the original singers aren’t going to be there (well, one is dead…) because Mike Rutherford will be, and hopefully my Pappap’s spirit.
  • Also, Henry’s lucky that there were tickets inside, because he didn’t get the album that has “Silent Running” on it. What an asshole.
• Before going to my dad’s house for a Christmas visit, we had dinner at Pan Asia with other loners/non-Christmas types. It was nice because the place wasn’t dead. But I made the rookie mistake of sitting across from Chooch, who just got a camcorder and is already calling the (zero) subscribers of his (non-existent) YouTube channel “demon cakes.” There’s an approx. 7-minute video of me sipping my oolong tea. It’s riveting. Henry has already made a gif out of it.

• Hanging out at my dad’s on Christmas night was really nice and we all laughed a lot. On the way home, I was thinking about how nice this Christmas was — no tears, no ungratefulness. And then my phone buzzed with a Facebook notification. My friend Jenny had tagged me in a comment that she left about my serial killer cards. She’s always pimping my shop, so I didn’t think anything of it at first, until I noticed that the thing she was commenting on actually WAS one of my cards….only with some other person’s logo on it. So I went to the actual page on FB that this was posted on, and it turned out that they had taken EVERY ONE OF MY CARDS and put their logo on it. From what I could tell, they weren’t selling them, but they were taking credit. And they were getting A LOT of great feedback from people who were commenting, liking, and sharing. We’re talking 100s of people. This guy, whose name I refuse to mention, has over 30,000 likes on his page. These are all people who could have been potential customers, but instead, they think he’s the “brilliant” one churning these things out. I know it’s a really weird/dumb/sketchy thing to be involved in, but I have literally cornered the market on serial killer greeting cards since 2007. And I take pride in that. So first, I commented on one and, even though my immediate reaction was to fucking go off, I tried to stay rational and explained that I was the creator of these cards, here’s the link to my shop, etc. Then I started replying to some of the comments too, saying things like, “Thanks! I made this card. Here’s the link to my shop.” I tried to send this guy a direct message and couldn’t find the option to do. Then I noticed all of my comments had been deleted. He fucking blocked me. I found his website and contacted him through that; meanwhile, I had posted on my personal and business Facebook pages and a lot of my friends and customers were going after him, only to have their comments deleted and get blocked as well. Some lucky people were even getting personally harassed by him. I couldn’t even believe the balls on this guy. He was so mean and cocky. He told my one friend that he was trying to enjoy Xmas with his family, so what’s her beef. WELL THAT IS WHAT I WAS TRYING TO DO TOO! Oh my god. Then he and Henry started messaging back and forth and he flat out told Henry that his girlfriend “found” my cards on the Internet and since I didn’t get “permission” from the inmates to use their pictures (are you fucking kidding me), that it was OK for him to steal from me. Because my ideas and the time I put into creating these cards don’t mean shit without BTK’s seal of approval, I guess. Then he replied to my email and basically tried to bully me into giving him a cut of my card sales because, and I quote: “I have 30.000 followers and you have 200. Who are you?” And then he attacked me on my business page, basically saying that just because I “steal” inmates’ pictures and cut and paste, doesn’t make me an artist.  It was clear that I wasn’t going to be able to reason with this piece of shit, but luckily Facebook came through in less than 24 hours and took down all of my images from his page. We’re protected under basic copyright laws, but you better believe we’ll be registering for an LLC, which I never thought would be necessary before since we don’t really sell  that many of these things and it’s certainly not our bread and butter. I mean, Henry and I both have full-time jobs. I’m not sure how I would feel if I made enough money off serial killers to quit my day job, anyway. I haven’t heard from this guy since Facebook stepped in (although the next night, he “liked” my non compos cards FB page….and I have a feeling it’s not because he wants to kiss and make up). I just have a feeling this isn’t the last I’ve heard from him, but I’ll tell you — I have never been so thankful to work at a big law firm.
  • Not to be corny, but the best thing about all of this is that so many of my friends, and their friends, and past customers totally had my back. They defended me, they hijacked this guy’s hashtag, they reposted on their own FB about what he was doing, they tipped off their mutual friends who also liked this guy’s page. It was just really, really nice to not be in this alone. Octavia even started sending messages to the people who had liked his posts that used the images of my cards, since he had blocked her from replying to their comments. And now I’m officially friends with one of my favorite repeat customers, Polly! I’ll take my 200 friends over his 30,000 followers (which he probably paid for) any day.
  • The worst part was that I let this guy get under my skin and into my head and spent the rest of the weekend questioning my validity to the point where I wanted to just close my shop altogether.
  • Also, it wasn’t about the money. It was about pride. I created these and he was taking credit. Do you know how nauseating it was to see people giving him praise for something that I made, something that came out of MY head? I was shaking so violently Thursday night that Henry had to tell me to sit down and he handled it from there.
  • In his email to me, he stated that he writes to all of the “big name killers” and that Dennis Rader probably wouldn’t be too happy knowing I was using his picture, but he spelled his name “Radar.” And then he did it again on mu Facebook pages, and Henry said that he spelled it that way in a message to him, too, which makes me laugh. It was everything I could do not to type “I HAVE A DEATH ROW PEN PAL TOO!” Ugh.
• In better Christmas news, Henry framed my Goblin and Circa Survive show prints! And then he didn’t hang them the way I wanted. But still. At least they’re framed and not rolled up somewhere.

***

Overall, 2014 wasn’t too bad. Sure, it had low points, what year doesn’t? But it also brought a lot of laughter, amazing shows, and new friendships. And I get to end it by going to the hockey game tonight with Henry! So for that, I can’t hate on 2014.

• I was on late shift two days in a row last week, so it was later in the morning when I took the trolley to work. Henry has been driving me to work on my last several late shift days, and I’ll tell you: the one thing I miss about working late shift every day is the cast of unsavories I got to mingle with on the trolley. Really never thought I would say that, but my regular morning commute is full of boring business-people quietly reading their Kindles or listening to podcasts. Occasionally there is that one douchebag who thinks it’s appropriate to loudly speak on their cellphone the whole way into town, and also now that it’s winter, it’s your average Snot Symphony up in there. ANYWAY!! For last Thursday’s late shift, I got on the trolley at 10:30 and an older lady reading the Bible promptly sat down next to me while the trashy girl in front of me answered her country music ring-toned phone and promptly started SCREAMING, “YOU SAT THERE CALLING ME NAMES AT FRIGGIN’ PRIMANTI’S! OH, AND NOW I’M A WHORE?!” Awkward. She didn’t look like a whore.
  • The next day, I sat behind a farmer.

• Sometimes Marcy and Chooch really get along great, like when it’s Sunday Donut Time and Marcy skulks around looking for just a crumb, one tiny taste, oh brother can you spare a morsel. So then it’s all, “Aw look how sweet Marcy and Chooch are, everybody!” But then there are the times when Chooch is sitting at the dining room table, doing his homework, and Marcy sits on the table in front of him, stalking the motion of pencil with her eyes, until eventually she can stand it no longer and lunges at the pencil, but then at the last second, right before pencil/paw contact, she’s like, “Fuck it” and goes for his hand instead. This makes Chooch flip out, and he yells at her and tells her she’s a horrible bitch, so then she moves closer and sits down on his homework with her back toward him and this makes Chooch cry out of frustration and Henry has to try to lure Marcy away from him with treats but she’s like, “Hold on, let a bitch get one more tail-whip in here” and she maliciously and stubbornly slams her tail down right in front of Chooch before jumping off the table and eating the treats Henry left in a Hansel and Gretel trail away from Chooch.
• Yesterday, I was texting Henry and autocorrect just changed a word to “BTK.” #HowYouKnowYouTextTooMuchAboutSerialKillers
• If I just let entire Michael Buble video play on YouTube without turning it off. Am I old or nah.
• Today I learned that Barb hates most collars, scarves, and other such fashionable garrotes so I think it’s settled that I’m buying her chokers for Christmas.

• Chooch and I had an ice cream date a weeks ago with Kristy and Sarah. We met at a parking lot near Oh Yeah! Chooch and I arrived first and were promptly berated by two parking lot security guards who were getting paid to remind assholes like me that this lot was for CUSTOMERS ONLY and not fat pigs who were trying to walk a block away to get ice cream on a cold November night. The problem was that I was unable to back my car out to leave because so many yuppie fuckknobs were pulling into the lot because it’s connected to A WHOLE FOODS down below. It was basically just a state store and Chipotle on the upper level where we parked, but these faux-cops weren’t having outlanders like us take up a fucking spot in their promised land. So we intercepted Kristy and Sarah right before the parking popo had a chance to berate them too, and totally not suspiciously walked away from our car through the parking lot away from the cops, so it looked like maybe we had changed our mind and were going to spend an hour purchasing beverages to help our children fall asleep faster that night, but really we escaped the parking lot at the other end and basically walked a mile out of the way to get ice cream just so we wouldn’t have to drive around looking for street parking. I was going to draw a map/diagram to show you just how harrowing of a detour it was, but I’m too tired for Exhibits. I’ll just tell you that we had to cross a pedestrian bridge and walk down a dark, deserted road and then climb some steps which put us onto the street that we could have easily arrived at had the parking popo not foiled our plans.
  • We played Scrabble over ice cream. Chooch laid down the first word, which was “ego.” Now, I’m not the type of broad who walks around claiming their kid is a prodigy, but in that moment, I was like, “MY KID IS FUCKING BRILLIANT. HE LITERALLY JUST PLAYED EGO.” But then he said, “That’s how you spell it, right? The waffle? ‘Leggo my Eggo’?” So…Meanwhile, Sarah, who is 5, accidentally spelled “tampon” almost. (She was a letter off.) Then we walked back the way we came because I didn’t want to have to walk past the parking lot guards. Kristy was like “Why don’t you just go into Wine and Spirits and but a little bottle of booze, then if they say anything to you, you can show them the receipt” but I said no BECAUSE I REFUSED TO BOW THOSE MOTHERFUCKERS. Instead, we said goodbye to Kristy and Sarah and then Chooch and I slinked back to our car, hunched over, slipping between the front ends of the parked cars and the barrier wall of the parking lot, just so we wouldn’t have to walk out in the open and be all exposed. Like, “HERE WE ARE FELLAS! COMING BACK TO OUR UNLAWFULLY PARKED CAR!” We came home and tried to explain the whole cloak and dagger of it all to Henry, who just smirked at us and said, wait for it, “You idiots.”

• Henry had to work on Black Friday so Chooch and I decided to venture out and try this new sandwich shop that opened up down the street in Dormont. It’s called Parker’s and it’s very close to one of my least favorite places in the world: the dreaded DOR-STOP. The Dor-Stop is one of those mediocre diners that got super over-hyped by dumb Guy Fieri and his lame-o Food Network show. I was really excited to flip that place the bird as we turned the corner to go to Parker’s, which is tiny but has some mighty sandwiches, you guys. And an entire veggie section on the menu! Chooch wanted to sit at the counter, and by doing so, we were pulled into numerous conversations with the proprietor and his people. (One was his mom and she was awesome.) Chooch and I both felt like we were part of a club, and WE LOVE TO BE INCLUDED IN THINGS so Parker’s is basically our new favorite place in the whole entire world. (It helps that the sandwiches were wonderful, as well.) But the best part is that Henry wasn’t there so we have been purposely bringing up Parker’s constantly, just to make him feel bad. (I don’t think it’s working though.) Like last week when Chooch burped at dinner and Henry yelled at him, Chooch was like, “Yeah, but the lady at Parker’s said that’s a compliment to the chef” and I was like, “Don’t bother, Chooch. He won’t understand. He wasn’t there.”
  • On the way home from Parker’s that day. Chooch ditched me while we were crossing the street because he decided he wanted to go a different way but I had already started crossing the street so I screamed and felt so paralyzed until finally I remembered how to walk again and turned around. It was touch-and-go there for a minute. I was so mad at him, but then he tripped on the sidewalk and I was like, “YES! HAHAHA THAT’S WHAT YOU GET!” Then I admitted that I had a crush on Parker. “He had those beautiful blue eyes,” I gushed. “Oh my god,” Chooch muttered. And then and then and then!

• During the evening of Black Friday, Chooch came downstairs creepily wearing one of my old Lip Service skirts from my goth days. (I use that term loosely. I was more like the Mulatto of the goth scene. Parts of me were goth, but other parts of me were blond, overly-social, with a closetful of Contempo. But I just really liked that goth music, you guys.) “Really Mommy?” Chooch asked in that snotty teenaged-sneer that kids seem to acquiring earlier and earlier these days. “You WORE this!?” Yes, and I also had a dress that said “Fuck” all over it.
  • A few days later, and god only knows why, Chooch and I had a legit argument over who was aware of the existence of goths first. He was all, “You wouldn’t even know about goths if I hadn’t told you!” and I was all, “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING? I met my ex-boyfriend IN A GOTH CHATROOM!” and then Henry was all, “Please stop fighting with the 8-year-old.” I think he was talking to Chooch.
• I’m so sad that next week is the last episode of Serial! I’m not one for podcasts, but like so many other people, I’m obsessed with this one. It’s so fucking intriguing and I know, I know: this isn’t about wrapping everything up nicely, giving the case a Hollywood ending, proving innocence or guilt. But I can’t help but feel strongly that Adnan is innocent. I will admit this to the Internet, I don’t care: I’m one of those people who is very easily swayed and controlled by emotions and feelings over facts and evidence. Like, I’ll find myself yelling at Henry, “BUT HE DOESN’T SOUND LIKE A KILLER! I LIKE HIS VOICE. HE DIDN’T DO IT.” I would make a fucking terrible juror. I mean, all these years later and I still maintain that OJ Simpson is innocent and I will say now what I said to every one of my classmates who booed me when I cheered at the Not Guilty verdict back in high school: someone who was in Back to the Beach could not have killed someone because Back to the Beach is one of my favorite movies.
  • Hey speaking of killers, I got a Xmas card from my death row pen pal the other day and it kind of caught me off guard because I haven’t heard from him in awhile. Maybe almost two years? I admittedly started to pull away from him quite some time ago, way before I even started working at The Law Firm, so it’s been over 5 years since I wrote to him, probably. He just would always ask me to do things for him, place Craigslist ads for private eyes, update his LiveJournal, it was just too much. And then I also had a series of really bad dreams about him too, coming to my house (it was my mom’s house in my dream though; everything always happens there or my Pappap’s house) and seeming all nice at first but then his smile would start to look just a little too sharp , baring just a little too much teeth, and then there’s this moment where we just stand there, frozen, and I turn to run and then there’s a chase, etc etc etc. So yeah, I got that card and was a little frightened, but then I felt guilty for blowing him off. So I went to work and confided in Glenn and Formerly-Mean-Amber. “What did he do?” Glenn asked. “Killed his wife, but he totally didn’t do it,” I casually answered. “And you know this because?” Glenn asked, totally provoking me. “Because he told me….and they never found a body!” I cried defensively. So Glenn and Mild-Tempered-For-Now Amber started to read Greg’s Murderpedia page and almost right away, they both said, “Oh yeah, he did it. He totally did it.”

• Shameless (not self) promotion: I bought Chooch this t-shirt from Abstruse Apparel that features Artifex Pereo lyrics and is also educational because, to quote from their site “it’s about a disorder called Body Integrity, which is a neurological and psychological disorder that makes sufferers feel they would be happier living as an amputee. It is typically accompanied by the desire to amputate one or more healthy limb to achieve that end.” So Chooch and I talked about that and he was like, “Great. I hope no one at school asks me what this means” and I was like, ‘You’re in 3rd grade. If it doesn’t have Minecraft on it, ain’t no one sayin’ shit to you about your shirt.”
• Today, Credit Karma emailed me to tell me that my credit score has gone from GTFO to Poor. #progress

• I found this old picture of Nicotina (Speck, to some of you) on the computer, so Henry printed it out and hung it on the cat wall. Yesterday marked 3 years since she died unexpectedly and I’ll tell you, I miss that furry brat every day. Chooch actually still can’t look at her picture without straight sobbing. I’m not even exaggerating a little bit. That kid’s world was rocked when she died. Speck was the one that Chooch took to immediately once he went from being sluggish newborn to somewhat-alert human. I hope the pictures help him one day, though, like they help me.
• I got an email from Dark Matter Coffee the other day while we were all in the car, going god knows where, and I said, “Just seeing their logo makes me want to cry.” And then as I looked at Henry to say that it reminds me of Riot Fest, I actually did start to cry and Henry of the Cold-Hearted Snake Clan made some disgusted groan and mumbled, “Oh my god.” I can’t help it! I miss Riot Fest and I honestly think about it every single day because I have problems with letting go.

• It’s hard to believe that Christmas card season is almost done for this year. Our shop did well this year! People seemed to really respond well to the new sparkly card stock we’ve been using. I know it’s niche and seems pretty stupid, but these cards are my babies and it makes me feel kind of secretly smug because one of the many career paths my grandma tried to bulldoze for me was a card designer at Hallmark. Can you even imagine? These cards are the one thing that I don’t seem to get burnt out on. Like, I’ll go for months grudgingly going through the motions with blogging (I mean, what? You could tell? Shocker!) and I’ll go through months without picking up my camera or YEARS without dipping a brush in paint, but man—designing cards really relaxes me.
  • So weird, but Janna and I are currently texting right now about getting burnt out by binge-watching TV shows and I admitted that I’m like the only person in the world who didn’t finish Orange Is the New Black because I literally just quit giving a shit halfway through the second season and I think it’s because I don’t like that Netflix does that, just releases an entire season like that, because I need something to look forward to, the way The Walking Dead has given people a reason to finally look forward to the dreaded Sunday night.
• Big ups to Terri for tipping me off to A Pregnant Light, which is currently motivating me to finish this pointless blog post so I can go to dumb bed!
• WE’RE LEAVING FOR PHILLY AFTER WORK TOMORROW! Of course, I work late shift tomorrow, so that means we’re not leaving until after 8:30. But still! I get to see Terri, Christian, Circa Survive, and the Mutter Museum! OK GOODNIGHT!!!